Main board replacement to stop stutter Advice Please

[Leslie Davidson]

Hi
I have been struggling with a stuttering problem for months now and am at the end of this quest. I have a PIII 850 - 384MB 133 ram - W98se - G-400 VT v 1.54 and matching drivers with MSP 5.2 Sound blaster 16 ISA (traded my Live MP3 out on the trouble shoot).
C drive is 20 Gig. D drive is 2x 40 Gig (all 3 Western Digital and all 7,200rpm (Swapped Maxtors out in the trouble shoot))
D is RAID 0 on a promise fasttrack (Went this way to avoid the HPT370's on the BX-133 in the trouble shoot).
Nothing has solved the problem. Well the Western Digitals actually changed the nature of the stutter from random hiccup type to a random stammering stutter. I've don't all the usual FAQ stuff. Done extensive fiddling with combinations of vcache and virtual memory settings. Disabled and/or uninstalled every unnecessary piece of software I have, including the clock.
I am now trying the only other thing in the entire system that hasn't been completely replaced in the last 6 months... the Mother board itself ( Actually it has, I went from one with HPT 260 to the BX 133) But I see that someone got his fixed by replacing his entire innerds so now I'm hot on that.
I'd like to know what anyone thinks or knows about the SA6 with the i815 chipset.
I really appreciate your input.
Thank you Leslie

[Brian Ellis]

The best advice I can give you is to go to a small Mom and Pop computer shop, explain your problem and say that you will buy from them whatever m/b they recommend, on condition that it works. Leave your computer with them with all your hardware and software and show them what you are trying to do. You may pay 20 or 30% more than you would pay a computer supermarket where they know nothing and care less than that, but you will have established a good working relationship. They may try 2 or 3 candidate m/bs before they hit on a good one.

Even better, tell them you'll buy an empty computer, filling it with your current components.

However, I suggest there may be another component you may not have tried, the power supply unit: this gives much more aggro than is commonly believed, either because one of the voltages is inadequate on full load with many accessories/cards or because it emits a lot of noise (I've had both happen). In the latter case, it can slow some components, including the PCI bus, right down because the checksums are frequently wrong.

[wkulecz]

As usual I'll chime in after Brian and agree that swapping the power supply is a good thing to do for "weird" problems that don't seem to isolate to any particular component.

Its cheap (<$50) and for most systems easier than swapping the motherboard!

I'll also agree that NLE is one of those applications it pays to have a working relationship with a vendor that'll work with you even thought it'll cost a bit more up front, its well worth it in the long run. Unfortunately the Mom&Pop computer stores and their expertise are quickly going under by the onslaught of the big box stores and customers that won't appreciate what they've given up for their "savings" until its too late.

--wally.

[LvR]

Hi Leslie

It would seem that since our last communication you are still outa luck - what happened to your Saint? (Ernie?).

Did you try the other mobo you mentioned as a complete swop, and did it give you the same hassles?

While replacing the mobo with a totally different brand/chipset at this stage may seem to be the only other avenue left to explore, also maybe check on the hassles reported by some other Pal users that are reporting frames being dropped on playback or jittery playback of captured material (Christrati both here and at Matrox seems to be posting extensively on this). It would seem to be a driver "thing".

I must have been lucky this far as I have not seen or experienced it in Pal country on all 72 of the 815 based systems I now have in the field.

[Leslie Davidson]

Hi ,
Saint Ernie is still with me. We have been doing the fan dance with 'pull this swap that' . It's just been slow going. I also and finally got an RT2000 system so I could fulfill my deadline committments. Much of my spare time has been spent chipping away at learning Premiere, and trying to figure out why I have an audio feedback issue and audio sync creep with the fire wire captures. But that's another story I guess the journey never ends. Hope all is well again any advice is appreciated. Leslie