Been having this problem with my PC since day one. Whenever I have music playing in Winamp and open another window... stuttering happens. The music breaks up and stops and then starts again once the new window is open. I just added another 256MB RAM to boost up to 512 total hoping that disk swapping was the culprit. It still happens. It happened with the onboard Intel sound chip and it happens with my Soundblaster 512.

Ideas peeps?

When it happens check the performance load from task manager, if its high check the processes tab to see what is causing it.

It sounds like file transfer it too slow, Install latest drivers for motherboard, make sure you have DMA enabled. Is it a new motherboard?

Also check to make sure your drive is in DMA mode. Device manager, primary IDE controller, properties. Same for the secondary.

DMA is on, it's still the ALbatron 845 motherboard (HK keeps spending my upgrade money), and task manager shows CPU spikes to 89%!

Now determine what process is taking the most CPU from the process's tab.

System Idle Process????? Hmm... interesting, just open 5 IE windows sequentially and now sputtering. I did uninstall the Avance '97 software...

System idle process is how much of the CPU is idle, the higher the better.

Try playing a song with Windows Media Player and see if it does the same thing. Could be that something is having a problem with WinAmp itself.

VIA chipset? May need the latency patch. It stops cracking with sound blaster cards etc etc.

Nah, Intel 845PE chipset.

i am truely sorry sir... your chipset blows.... rofl

<Squints in Mandark's direction, makes mental note of distinguishing features - especially the thick cranial ridge >

Yeah, I know... looking to get an 875P board.

I've got an 845E chipset and don't have any trouble with it on two machines... Mine has a SB Live! 5.1 and the other box is onboard sound using the Realtek ALC650 drivers...

I'd suspect it's prolly something OTHER than the sound system that is causing your stutter...

Did you install the Intel Application Accelerator as well as the INF Updater?

Try the RealTek ALC650 Drivers...
ftp://210.51.181.211/pc/ac97/alc650/wdm_a357.exe
or
ftp://152.104.125.40/pc/ac97/alc650/wdm_a357.exe
or
ftp://202.65.194.18/pc/ac97/alc650/wdm_a357.exe

I was joking.... sorry to ruffle any feathers... we have those at work and no problems.. no matter if i have Oracle Forms, 10 IE browsers and TOAD running all at the same time... oh yeah, lots and lots of notepad instances too...

Peace!!! I was joking too!!!!

It seems to be okay now but who knows how long it will last. I really think it's a function of the Albatron MoBo.