[Gomfedj]

I use winamp as my main mp3 player, and i noticed after installing Everest (latest beta 3.50.782), i can get a slight stuttering in winamp if my pc is just sitting (not being used by me but other programs might be running in background.. but no more than 3-7% cpu usage)

If i am doing something, be it switching screens, or draging a window around, or if i am under a pulldown menu where the items highlight or tooltips pop up, it skips quite baddly for around 1/2 to 2/3 of a second. At it's worest (like when i have been testing by constantly dragging a window around) it can even freeze up the mouse/window drag for a second too.

I noticed the thread http://www.lavalys.c...o...9&hl=winamp and i tried the suggestions you gave him, both directsound playback and wav playback stutter (direct sound is lessened on stutter if i up the pre-cache settings in the direct sound driver).

I also saw you asked if he, had this problem with speedfan, i have run speedfan but honestly i don't remember it doing this before, but i didn't run it much.

i do run other programs to monitor temp's like Nvidia's Ntune - Nmonitor(to monitor both GPU temps), and also MSI's core cell for monitoring MB and CPU temps. i didn't notice it skipping when running these applications.

This is not a major problem, but a bit fustrating (i was planning on making Everest start when my system did, becuse i am SO happy with the LCD output to the G15 keyboard.. and honestly this is only the SECOND application i have ever seen that displays BOTH gpu temps in a SLI setup)

anyways just curious if there had been anymore on this issue, I assume it is some sort of system hiccup when the sensors all refresh at once, while winamp is playing (though honestly neither application uses more like about 1% of the cpu!)

just for reference my system is as follows

MSI K8N Neo4 platinum SLI (MS-7100)
2Gig Corsair TwinX
primary HD = 74Gig Raptor (has OS and Swap file)
I also have 3 other HD's 200Gig-ATA 250Gig-ATA 250Gig-SATA
Soundcard is a SBlive 24bit (it is integrated into the MSI motherboard)

Thanks for any advice/help with this issue.

[Fiery]

What video card do you have? GF 7950 GX2?

[Gomfedj]

What video card do you have? GF 7950 GX2?

I have 2 BFG 7800GT's

also i should of added I am running Windows XP SP2 + recent updates
and winamp is the newest version they offer 5.31 I believe.

[Gomfedj]

Just wanted to add some more information to this, I have been working to try to pin down what it might be and this is what i have come up with.

I first went under preference/hardware monitor and turned ALL the settings down to 1 second update intervals, i figured if it was becuse it was pulling sensor reading this would increase the problem (oddly i did NOT see a noticable increase in the occurances of stuttering in Winamp).

I then went under preference/stability and made sure everything was checked BUT "Measure CPU temp using ACPI" and then i started winamp and started music playing, and then i drug the everest window around untill i got it to stutter 2 or 3 times (usually takes less than a minute to get 2 or 3 jumps/sutters in the music)

After that i went through the preference/stability menu and unchecked items then closed and restarted Everest each time. I checked/unchecked everything BUT the Load drivers for the different OS's. each time i would then drag the everest window around and see if i could get it to stutter with the music.

The only one that made ANY difference and by difference i mean i could not get it to stutter after 3 or 4 songs went by and me constantly dragging a window.. or switching between or jsut normally working (like typing this message it STILL hasn't)

was the one called "Low-Level Smart operations". with that unchecked winamp is NOT stuttering at ALL.

Now this may only be becuse i have four hard disks, and they are all SMART enabled.

I may try tommorow disconnecting three of my HD's and just leaving my primary connected, and then see if with "Low-Level Smart Operations" enabled i can still get winamp to stutter. (and also combinations of drives connected/disconnected, maybe it is ONE of my drives causing the problem and not just becuse i have four...)

anyways wanted to keep you up to date on my own findings with this issue..

Thanks for your time,

[Fiery]

In the case the stuttering happens only 2 times a minute, then it is the SMART hard disk temperature detection that causes the issues. FYI, the hardware monitoring module of EVEREST only polls hard disks for hard disk temperature reading (which is part of SMART information) twice a minute.

You can check that by going to the Storage / SMART page, and pressing the Refresh button on the tool bar.

There's a chance it is caused by one of the ATA or SATA controllers of your motherboard, so it would be useful to know the actual HDD-to-DiskController configuration you use. Ie. which disks are connected to which controllers?

We have plenty of motherboards here, so if we know how to connect the drives, we may be able to reproduce the issue here.


Thanks,
Fiery

[Gomfedj]

In the case the stuttering happens only 2 times a minute, then it is the SMART hard disk temperature detection that causes the issues. FYI, the hardware monitoring module of EVEREST only polls hard disks for hard disk temperature reading (which is part of SMART information) twice a minute.

You can check that by going to the Storage / SMART page, and pressing the Refresh button on the tool bar.

There's a chance it is caused by one of the ATA or SATA controllers of your motherboard, so it would be useful to know the actual HDD-to-DiskController configuration you use. Ie. which disks are connected to which controllers?

We have plenty of motherboards here, so if we know how to connect the drives, we may be able to reproduce the issue here.
Thanks,
Fiery

Ok, first your exactly right, it is when the smart updates (makes sense, considering turning that off stoped it.. and having it on caused it" and it is aprox 2 times a minute, but the stutters do line up almost perfectly when a temperature changes on one of my four HD's, i say almost becuse well the temperature on the HD's does not change much up/down once the system warms up.

I did disconnect all my HD's and leave JUST the 74gig Raptor connected, and tried it. It still would stutter/skip in winamp but it was greatly reduced in frequency. I tested it for about 15 minutes and only got it to do it 3 or 4 times and i was trying to by dragging windows etc.

Now as for what i have on what controllers.

the Motherboard (as mentioned in original message) is an
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI
it has the following connections (used by my HD's i will list HD and deviced connected too later)

2 PATA IDE connections, this is controlled by the Nforce4 chipset.
4 SATA connections controlled by the Nforce 4 chipset they are all SATA-II
2 additional SATA connections controlled by a Silicon Image SI 3232 chipset their also SATA-II

i will now list the four HD's i have and what controller they are on

Western Digital WD2000JB -200Gig connected to PATA IDE 1 - Master (and only device on that channel)
Western Digital WD740GD - 74Gig Raptor -Sata1 on Nforce 4 Controller
Western Digital WD2500KS - 250Gig -Sata2 on Nforce 4 Controller
Maxtor 6B250S0 - 250Gig Sata3 on Nforce 4 Controller

***********************************************************************

On a side note i have noticed a couple other things with the software, which i feel have NOTHING to do with the Winamp problem, but i wanted to point out becuse i think one is a bug and the other is a bug but is caused by a hardware problem on my side.

1st under the Sensor page where it shows "Chassis Intrusion Detected" for one reason it keeps changing from Yes to No or from No to Yes (in other words it is just changing for some odd reason), i am not sure my MB even supports that, so i am not sure why it is changing on the Sensor page but i wanted to point it out (also i NEVER noticed it at anything but "no" when the sensor page was updating slower than 1 sec intervals)

2nd thing is i noticed my WD2500KS Hard Disk temperature disapear from the sensor list, but it STAYED on the OSD page. I went under the "Storage/Smart" section and looked at the HD and the temperature flag was displaying a "1" so i assume the software couldn't handle the HD teling it that, so it just stoped displaying it. Oddly after a few minutes it clears up and the temperature displays like normal. So as i said, i think it may be a slight bug in the software (that it disapears from the senor list but stays on teh OSD but the temp dosen't change), but i think it is a bug caused by some problem with that Harddisk.



hope i haven't flooded ya with too much confusing information, i have a friend with a near duplicate system to me, (different HD's and only 1 7800GT and he is running Windows 2k, but same MB/memory/7800GT etc etc..) i will get him to try this weekend and see if i he can produce the same results i am having.

Thanks again!

[Fiery]

Thanks for the info. I somehow suspect the problem could be related to the nVIDIA SATA controller. We'll do some test runs with a nForce 570 SLI board, and I'll get back to you in this topic with the results.


Thanks,
Fiery

[Tricky2005]

Thanks for the info. I somehow suspect the problem could be related to the nVIDIA SATA controller. We'll do some test runs with a nForce 570 SLI board, and I'll get back to you in this topic with the results.
Thanks,
Fiery

Hi, I have just started using Everest and found this thread after Googling skipping problems in Winamp (also happens in iTunes BTW)

I have an ASUS P5ND2-SLI with............ yes you guessed it an nVIDIA SATA controller and 2 SATA hard drives.

Is there any progress with this?

[killian]

Just so you know, i have exactly the same problem. The stutter is noticeable in games, dvd playback, etc. It's on almost every audio output from the PC. It goes instantly when i close Everest (I use it for OSD temps/mhz display only. BTW, Everest is the only app I found that displays everything i need, so thanx a lot for addresing this problem)

Sys specs:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 2650 MHz (10 x 265)
2x 512mb Supertalent DDR2 800mhz (CL5)
Asus M2N-E - nVIDIA nForce 570 chipset <---
NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
HD WDC WD2500KS-00MJB0 (connected on SATA)
Onboard Sound: Analog Devices AD1988B - High Definition Audio Controller

Comparing my specs with Gomfedj's, I notice that my sound card is not SB Live, so i think it's not a Sound Card problem.
Tricky2005 also has a Nforce controller. So we all have that in common... hmmm...

Thanks

This post has been edited by killian: 14 December 2006 - 08:28 AM

[Fiery]

nVIDIA chipsets tend to have issues with Creative Audigy and X-Fi cards, so maybe this is yet again such a case. We'll investigate it on our MSI K9N SLI Platinum mobo (based on nForce 570 SLI chipset).

[Fiery]

1) What version of nForce Platform Drivers do you use?

2) Do you use the Microsoft or nVIDIA IDE driver?


Thanks,
Fiery

[Fiery]

That's a rather weird issue, but we've implemented a fix that may be useful to get rid of the stuttering/clicking.

Please upgrade to the latest beta version of EVEREST Ultimate Edition available at:

http://www.lavalys.c...zw8eiopj7rm.zip

Let us know how it works. Make sure to check if the sound issues are gone even when the EVEREST CPUID panel is open.


Thanks,
Fiery

[Tricky2005]

That's a rather weird issue, but we've implemented a fix that may be useful to get rid of the stuttering/clicking.

Please upgrade to the latest beta version of EVEREST Ultimate Edition available at:

http://www.lavalys.c...zw8eiopj7rm.zip

Let us know how it works. Make sure to check if the sound issues are gone even when the EVEREST CPUID panel is open.
Thanks,
Fiery

Still skipping on my machine.

Winamp v5.32
WinXP SP2

ASUS P5ND2-SLi
Intel P4 640 3.2GHz
2GB DDR2-533 RAM

SATA Driver version 5.10.2600.552 (NVIDIA)

[VanillaXtract]

I am also having the same issue when low level SMART is enabled. I have the skipping in winamp, WMP, and powerDVD

Winamp 5.32
Everest version 3.50.761
ASUS P5n32-SLI SE Deluxe
Intel Pentium D 805
2GB DDR 800MHz memory

Let me know if you need to know anything else

[Fiery]

We've fine-tuned the SMART layer of EVEREST to consume less CPU power to read SMART data.

Please upgrade to the latest beta version of EVEREST Ultimate Edition available at:

http://www.lavalys.c...x8ftqgsr4ld.zip

Let me know if it helps.


Thanks,
Fiery

[Tricky2005]

We've fine-tuned the SMART layer of EVEREST to consume less CPU power to read SMART data.

Please upgrade to the latest beta version of EVEREST Ultimate Edition available at:

http://www.lavalys.c...x8ftqgsr4ld.zip

Let me know if it helps.
Thanks,
Fiery

Still stuttering on my system, can't figure out if it has improved. Thanks anyway for trying.

Is there anything we can change in the options to try and stop this?

ASUS P5ND2-SLi
Intel P4 640 3.2GHz
2GB DDR2-533 RAM
SATA 2 HDD's

[Fiery]

We're still not sure about what causes the stuttering You can try disabling e.g. SMART features, but then you'll lose HDD temperature detection... If you wanna give it a try, go to main menu / File / Preferences / Stability, and disable the SMART-related option there.

Make sure to use the latest beta version of EVEREST Ultimate Edition available at:

http://www.lavalys.c...rz3xcljn5tm.zip


Thanks,
Fiery

[Tricky2005]

Thanks Fiery, that last beta (3.80.955) seems to have sorted it for me without turning off HD monitoring.

[Fiery]

Thanks Fiery, that last beta (3.80.955) seems to have sorted it for me without turning off HD monitoring.

Great Thanks for the feedback!


Regards,
Fiery

[Cookie]

I have the same problem (even with the latest 4.00 beta) that every 5-20 seconds there is some kind of (short) crackling when playing a mp3 with winamp. This only happens when Everest is loaded; other "low-level" software like speedfan does not cause any problems with the sound quality.

The only solution for me is to DISABLE "low-level PCI bus operation" that you can find under "file" -> "preferences" -> "stability".

btw: I have a Gigabyte DS4 Board (Intel 965) and a X-FI soundcard under Windows Vista.