system audio lag?

[Anarki3x6]

big problem that started happening a couple days ago and now has gotten incredicly worse.

whenever i run something that plays sound, like winamp or a videogame, at random times it'll start to lag(dunno if thats the best word to use but..) it feels as if the entire computer freezes for a millisecond at the time, ez to tell since you can see moving the mouse cursor around and it pauses at times when it happens, it barely happens when something non-audio is on, so im guessing bad sound card? some other people told me cpu cuz even when i hit the next button in winamp my cpu monitor jumps to like 25% from 2% then back down, help please?

ah yes and some sys specs might help :P

comps about 2 years old right now, pentium 4 2.5 ghz
512mb pc1200 ram
radeon 9600se i installed a year ago
mobo is a hp pavilion 05, chipset Intel845(brookdale)
and the audio card is an onboard realtek ac97 audio card i guess

[mark_W]

Something seems to be hogging resources, have you ran anything to check for spyware?

- Mark

[Anarki3x6]

Ran spybot, adaware and norton antivirus, only some minor things came up which i got rid of but problem still continued.

[mark_W]

Any recently installed software on the system or anything......??

- Mark

[Anarki3x6]

nope. last thing i installed was anarchy online about 2 weeks ago which i've been playing for the past 2 weeks, this just started a couple days ago so i doubt AO is the cause... maybe my sound card or cpu is just crappin' out on me???

[mark_W]

Well, are there any dodgy looking tasks in task manager when the 'laggin' starts?

- Mark

[Anarki3x6]

Nope. Just a couple of my processes and system processes, but this looks like something important.. I run winamp... and while its playing music its cpu usage jumps up and down dramatically, same with any other media player... like from 2% cpu to up to as high as 50% at times... when i exit winamp the cpu jumps to 100% cpu usage for a sec or two then drops all the way down to a normal idleing cpu around 5-10%... happens with winamp and wmp and realplayer... can a bad sound card cause that to happen?

[mark_W]

Im not sure about a soundcard causing it, I guess it could do!

[Anarki3x6]

I think i need a new card anyways, this AC97 has given me problems before, and I sincerely doubt it supports 5.1 surround sound
Time to go shoppin' for a new one

[mark_W]

LOL....try taking the sound card out and seeing if you get the same task manager readings

- Mark

[Anarki3x6]

im 80% sure my sound card might be botching things up... so i went out and got a creative sound blaster live for 30 bucks. i hope it fixes my problem. if not then.. oh well ill have a nice new sound card but still a problem i'll have to fix

[mark_W]

Lol....post how you get on with the new card then!

- Mark

[Anarki3x6]

problem fixed. new audio card owns. im so happy... so... a crappy onboard sound card can REALLY cause a system to be really choppy and stuff lol...

ps, anyone out there with the onboard ac97 audio... KILL IT AND KILL IT DED

[mark_W]

Lol, Glad you got it sorted mate!

- Mark

[Anarki3x6]

well turns out... my comp like half broke down over the pastcouple days to be honest... getting a new card helped the audio stop lagging.... but system still feels a bit sluggish at times... i can move my mouse across the screen and see it pause some more im at my wits end on how to fix this thing