system hangs

[Frantic225]

I have a Athlon64x2, nforce mobo, sata disk, 3G DDR2, ZoneAlarm Pro, no Foreceware drivers

Whenever uTorrent goes over 200-300KB/s down+up speed, my system starts hanging for a short period, mouse cursor, winamp song, movies, etc. It's like watching the cursor move at really low fps.

I ran procexp and I see that the DPCs go up to 10-15% CPU.

I've read thru the troubleshooting forum and found a few references about nForce mobos but nothing concrete, anyone knows how to get rid of this problem?

Any help is apreciated. Thanks.

[Firon]

It's one of two things: Zone Alarm (worst firewall in existence), or your IDE/SATA controllers have reverted to PIO.

The latter is easier to find out. Check each controller's settings in the Device Manager and ensure that the current transfer mode is not set to PIO for any of them.

[Frantic225]

I've already tried turning off ZA, no change.

I've also found a discussion on the PIO for IDE disks, my disk is SATA and I found no option to switch it to PIO. I've also checked all the IDE controlers and they are all set to "DMA if available" (vs "PIO only")

What I also forgot to mention is that I don't have C&C, so it's not that.

[DreadWingKnight]

I've already tried turning off ZA, no change.

Uninstall it.

I've also checked all the IDE controlers and they are all set to "DMA if available" (vs "PIO only")

That doesn't tell us the current transfer mode. DMA isn't always available due to circumstances.

[Firon]

You can't turn off ZA. You MUST uninstall it. Disabling will not work.

[Frantic225]

OK, I uninstalled ZA, the computer still hangs

[Firon]

Any USB devices?

And I'd tell you to try uninstalling the SATA devices.. but I'm cautious about whether Windows will reinstall it properly (it will for IDE, but Windows is lame...).

[Frantic225]

USB mouse, nothing besides that.

[GTHK]

If you're referring to the nForce SATA controller Firon, no problem here. Frantic225, do your controllers appear as different generic channels? Or do you have one or two entry's that look something like "NVIDIA nForce 430/410 Serial ATA Controller"?

[Frantic225]

I'm not sure, I think my SATA controller is the "SCSI/RAID controller"

This should be everything from my device manager:

http://img382.imageshack.us/img382/6532/devicesmm9.jpg

[GTHK]

Yeah, you're controller setup looks like mine before I installed the drivers, installing them should help performance, and it includes command queuing, seemed to help mine.

Find out your exact controller model using CPU-Z and enter the data at http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us for the controller drivers. Restart.

After restarting, if the controllers weren't consolidated (probably into two), uninstall ALL the IDE controllers and reboot, if THAT doesn't work, right-click the first controller and click update > manually, OK > manually, OK > navigate to the NVIDIA folder created in the drive root by the install program > higher number folder > IDE section, SATA section, OK, pick your controller > then uninstall all the other ones > reboot. If you encounter any problems (doubtful at best), hold F8 while turning on your computer and select "Last known good configuration", then try the next suggested step.

[Frantic225]

I've downloaded the driver installer from nvidia.com, it just stops (dissapears) after it's "Initializing the wizard" step.

I've also tried removing all controllers and rebooting, they just got installed back the same way.

Unfortunately I have some work to do for a few days and I can't afford a windows reinstall yet, I'll try the manual way as soon as I can, that should work.

Thanks for all the help so far.