Computer Oddness

Comprox

So, I re-installed Windows XP a few months ago, and it's doing one really friggen annoying thing now. Whenever I am downloading a file, or installing anything the whole computer starts getting jerky. My music begins skipping and sounding choppy, and stuff randomly jerks around. The computer seems to respond fairly well still, it's mainly my music starts turning to crap.

I tried playing around with pripority settings in the Task Manager and programs like Winamp, but that didn't change anything. Im using Firefox, done my good old virus scans and spyware cleaning. I am running a P4 1.6 gighz, 1 gig Ram. I have had previous installations of windows on this same setup, and it never did this before.

Any ideas?

RPG_Jssmfulhud

HDD problems?

Swiftspear

Wierd, it sounds like you are devoting way too much RAM to singletask functions... Do you have hyperthreading enabled?

Maby your HDD just isn't working fast enough.

ElvenThief

Make sure DMA on your hard drive is turned on.

UnCritical

You've probably tried it, but Defragged lately?

Kitki

HDD might be dying. Defragment, or get Tweak-XP and free up your RAM.

Comprox

Hmm, I guess the HDD could be defective. The old one died, and I got sent a new one under warranty. I did go through one short install on it tho, where everything appeared to be working alright. Ill run a drive diagnostic on it overnight here and see.

taboofires

Any hardware conflict or problem could cause that kind of lag, and often does.