[Mardil]

Hello

Summary: My computer is experiencing jumpy sound/performance, I have nothing out of the ordinary installed, someone told me it could be because I installed way too much RAM (768MB in a computer that supposedly can support up to 2GB), can that be true?

This are my specs:
It's an HP Pavilion ZV6131us Windows XP SP2 installed, in spanish
768MB of DDR memory
AMD Athlon 2000+ processor
Conexant AC-Audio Link (I'm not sure if this is the actual hardware model)

Anyway, one year ago I was having a problem with my laptop, I was getting blue screens, untill i took the memtest and found that one of my 256MB of RAM was broken (I had 2x256MB). So I took it away and my computer worked great... untill about one month ago, when I decided to buy a new Kingston 512MB RAM memory. I installed it with ease and started experiencing boosted performance, but then something happened and I was getting jumpy sound... and jumpy performance too. ie., I was listening to music, then the sound started to get jumpy, then it would fix for 10 seconds and got jumpy again, same with performace (I have noticed that this happens more frequently when I'm using video/sound applications, like WMP, iTunes, Firefox)

So I formatted my computer with Windows XP in spanish, got the same problem after installing the following programs:
- All the computer drivers listed in hp.com for my model
- MSN Live Messenger
- BitLord
- Office 2007
- Visual Basic
- Power Archiver
- Windows Updates
- Creative Sync Manager
- Acrobat Reader
- Mozilla Firefox
It is worth noting that the computer with Windows XP in Spanish takes a long time to turn on.

So I had my computer reformatted yet AGAIN, this time using Windows XP in English, and everything worked fine for two days, but then it just didn't turn on. It got stuck in the Windows XP logo screen then it rebooted.

I sent my computer to someone so that he could check it, and he gave it back to me today, with the same jumpy sound/performance issue, and a huge problem: It takes about 10 minutes to turn on.

The technician told me that it could've be my computer RAM, that because I installed way too much it has started to slowly kill the processor. My computer says "Up to 2GB of RAM" in its specs, so I'm doubting this, but I can't say for sure, so this is why I ask. Can you guys help me?

THANK YOU

 

[elf]

Whoever told you that it had too much memory was way off. I don't know where they were getting their information from. My computer runs with 1GB of ram, or roughly 256MB more than yours, and it is very fast (except for my video card which recently died on me and I have friends who run with 4GB with no performance degradation.

I notice in that list of programs you have, there isn't a single security program (antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware, etc...). This seems very important unless you are not connecting it to the internet.

The speed with which PCs can become infected has now shortened. If your Windows computer is not properly protected, it will take 12 minutes before it becomes infected, according to London-based security company,Sophos. Sophos has detected 7,944 new viruses in the first half of 2005, a 59-percent increase over the same time span last year.

(and that was 2 years ago, and it has only gotten worse)

It is also entirely possible that the drivers for your hardware are outdated. You may consider downloading new drivers for your video and sound cards.

There are other things that could be causing this skipping problem, but those jump out at me as the most obvious causes so we will start with them.

 

[Mardil]

I notice in that list of programs you have, there isn't a single security program (antivirus, firewall, anti-spyware, etc...).

Sorry, you are right, I forgot to mention them, the first time I was using NOD32, the second one NOD32 too, and the last time I decided to install Kaspersky. At least I cant confirm that this isn't a virus problem, since I had installed what many consider the best antivirus programs out there in the market.

 

[elf]

Did the skipping start when you installed the new ram? Or was it sometime after?

You could try using your task manager to see if a certain process tries to use all system resources whenever it skips.

I know for a fact that you did not "add too much RAM" but you could have a faulty stick. I would lean towards a driver issue, or maybe your harddrive could have switched to a slower transfer mode (i.e. PIO mode instead of UDMA). Also, have you installed any of the windows updates since

I just wanted to make sure that you had some security software or else an infection would be a real possibility.

 

[Mardil]

The skipping started about three days after I installed the RAM.
Wow the task manager is crazy, it shows all processes (except two) on a 1,000 + KB usage, the computer usage (%) on the bottom shows about 68%, but maybe that's just because I'm transferring something from my external HD to my computer.
I'd like to check that thing about the HardDrive, I'm going to google it to find a solution.
Thanks

 

[t-mpg]

I sent my computer to someone so that he could check it, and he gave it back to me today, with the same jumpy sound/performance issue, and a huge problem: It takes about 10 minutes to turn on.

Don't assume McDonalds employees are computer technicians.

On a more serious note; you can't really have to much ram. Though if your getting jumpy sound and video it could be the main board or processor.