XP game problems

[whizbang]

I have a 850mhz Duron system w/512 MB ram and a 40 GB hard drive running Win XP Home.


It's been working fine for over a year, but has suddenly started doing some strange things while playing games. Every so often, the game will slow down to the point that motion becomes a series of jerky movements every few seconds. It will do this for about a minute, then come out of it just as sudden as it started. I noticed that while it does this, It never accesses the hard drive. It seems to do this on all games now.

Could it be something running in background? Any ideas?

Another minor problem is that XP has renamed the CD R/W drive with the name of a website (really strange). It works fine, but I would like to put the correct name back.

Thanks

[pam123]

It sounds like you should run a full virus scan and use Ad-Aware.
Get Ad-Aware, it's free, from here :http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
Spyware can cause all of the problems you've just listed. XP didn't one day decide to rename your drive some sneaky website you clicked on, or downloaded from, did.

[Blakhart]

If the computer is trying to update something from the web while you are gaming, this would be very symptomatical.

[whizbang]

Hmmmm, I ran a complete virus scan with McAfee and ran Ad-aware. Didn't find any virus.

I'm never on the Web when it does this. It doesn't seem to be dialing when this happens.

Any other thoughts?

[pam123]

Can you restore XP to a date before all this started ?

[edge345]

It could be checking your mail some times its set to chech every 20 min. look in the lower right hand bottom of the desktop and
disable one thing at a time and go gaming and you might narrow it down that way.

At first i thought it might be a virus. is your virus checker up to date.

[Prew]

as an aside- you really shouldn't be using ad-aware anymore. It hasn't been updated in months. Try Spybot: Search and Destroy- you'll be surprised at how much spyware Ad-Aware has missed.

[whizbang]

Downloaded Spybot, ran it... So far, so good. I played about 30 minutes with no problems. Time will tell.

Thanks for the ideas.

[Rick Hall]

Have you recently updated to DirectX 9, if so that could be the problem. Both ends of the connection will need version 9 for certain games.

[whizbang]

Well, I spoke too soon. Still has the problem.

Rick,
This problem shows up single player, non-internet/network games.

It always lasts about 90 seconds and then comes out of it just as fast as it started. I recently installed McAfee antivirus, could that be causing this?

[Alfie]

Is the anti virus program running while you're playing a game?
It's best to shut down all running programs while playing a game.

[TimPoet]

PC Mech sage known to say: Friends don't let friends do McAfee

Try switching to free AVG at www.grisoft.com

[whizbang]

I've tried it with the antivirus running and not running; it doesn't seem to make much difference.

PC Mech sage known to say: Friends don't let friends do McAfee

Do you not like McAfee, or is it just too expensive? I've never gotten a virus on my computer since I started using it.

Whizbang!

[Spyda]

i much prefer mcafee to norton, i haet norton, it totally messed one of my hard drives up

[reboot]

I've never gotten a virus on my computer since I started using it

How do you know for sure? If McAfee is the only AV program you're running, you can't tell for sure if you have a virus or not.
ANY virus program should always be checked against another. Even Norton's doesn't catch everything, nor AVG, nor Panda...
Check out trend micro's http://housecall.antivirus.com as the difinitive source of updated online scanning.

[TimPoet]

Originally posted by whizbang I've tried it with the antivirus running and not running; it doesn't seem to make much difference. Do you not like McAfee, or is it just too expensive?

It's not that you don't have it running and it makes no difference. The problem with McAfee oftentimes is that it is installed. You would have to uninstall it in order to avoid the crap it causes on your system.

Originally posted by Spyda i much prefer mcafee to norton, i haet norton, it totally messed one of my hard drives up

I bet it was not Norton AntiVirus that messed up your HDD, but, like me, Norton Utilities. I lost a 10 GB Maxtor HDD to it. But Norton AV is one of the best. McAfee used to be one of the top, but just like Netscape Navigator they lost their efficiency and cause a lot of problems.

[whizbang]

Just thought I'd post a follow-up in case someone else runs into this problem.

I started Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del), started a game and waited for the problem to happen. When it did, I went back to Windows (Alt+Tab) to see which running program was "eating" all the CPU time. It turned out to be Mcafee Virus Scan Online. I thought I had stopped it from running by right clicking the M icon in the system tray and clicking "Exit." I found out you have to go into Virus Scan Online and disable it to completely stop it from running.

Problem found and solved! Works just dandy now.

[TimPoet]

Originally posted by whizbang Just thought I'd post a follow-up in case someone else runs into this problem. I started Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del), started a game and waited for the problem to happen. When it did, I went back to Windows (Alt+Tab) to see which running program was "eating" all the CPU time. It turned out to be Mcafee Virus Scan Online. I thought I had stopped it from running by right clicking the M icon in the system tray and clicking "Exit." I found out you have to go into Virus Scan Online and disable it to completely stop it from running. Problem found and solved! Works just dandy now.

Again, friends don't let friends do McAfee. Glad you found the source of the problem in a definitive manner.