Cliffs at bottom

So I'm fixing this girls old Dell inspiron 2200 (she said it was the first generation model of inspirons) and she was complaining about not being able to listen to music in WMP without it skipping all the time. So I spend some time with her PC I get it down to about 32 process with AVG installed and yet she's still having problems. I look at task manager and it says cpu usage is at 25%+ just being idle and when playing music yet when I look at the process running it show they are hardly taking up any cpu cyles.

So I'm confused and I run sysinternals process explorer and I notice that the hardware interrupts are what's taking up all my cpu power. It was using 20%+ and I saw it go all the way up to 65%!!! So I'm like shit, I've got some fucked hardware or driver some where but which is it. So I google and discover that this can be caused if the IDE channel gets switched to PIO mode instead of DMA. So I check device manager and sure enough it's running in PIO mode so I uninstall the ide channel and reboot. Then when XP returns it reinstalls the IDE channel and I have to reboot again.

So I reboot again and then open process explorer and device manager and see the my hardware interrupts are down to 0% and spiking at 1.5% and the IDE channel is running in Ultra DMA 5 mode. Everythings good music plays now without skipping. Then, I pickup the laptop and set it aside and I notice that the music starts to skip again, and then when I pick it up again it stops skipping. I still have process explorer open so I see that my hardware interrupts shot up to 20% and stayed there for a second until I picked it up again and then it went back down. So after further moving around I've realized that if I move the laptop using normal movement that the interrupts fluxuate up and down from 0% up to 20%. What the hell is with this? Is this hard drive about to die? Device manager says it's still operating in DMA mode but IDK how up to date that is, it might only check on reboots, IDK. I have a spare hard drive from a macbook that I might could use but that's a bunch of extra steps to format it.

Cliffs:
Girls couldn't play music without skipping.
Ends up the IDE channel was in PIO mode instead of DMA, I uninstall IDE channel and set it back to DMA
Music plays fine after that
Until I move the laptop then it starts skipping again
Then when I move it again it stops skipping
so on and so forth, it's real finicky like trying to tune in a TV channel with rabbit ears.
Is her hard drive fucked?

 

Did you try and play music from a thumbdrive?

 

Good idea I'll try that now.

 

Does it play a CD without skipping?
Does anything else "skip"?

 

"ur so fat.. when u jump... u make my MP3 skip"

 

Is it possible this laptop has first gen "sudden motion sensors"? Perhaps it keeps thinking it's falling and putting the system in a protected state for split seconds at a time?

Otherwise, I'd suspect a failing hard drive.

 

I didn't make a difference, it's still skipped but that's cause the interrupts are eating up CPU resources and the fact that they're interrupts and get priority is what makes it so bad.

Here's a screenshot:

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25469567@N06/3194362967/" title="untitled by klxz79, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3464/3194362967_1303b0b313_o.jpg" width="1024" height="768" alt="untitled" /></a>

Notice in the red graph on the right that is the cpu usage of just the interrupts and nothing else. you can see how it rises and falls when I move the laptop around. I'm not moving it hard or suddenly nothing extreme I'm just picking it up and putting it down just as you would if you were to move from one place to another and that's all it takes.

 

everything is gonna skip cause these interrupts have much more of an affect than any other process. The reason they're called interrupts is because they interrupt everything else and skip to the front of the line and the CPU stops what ever else it's doing and deals with the interrupts first. It's like they have a permanent VIP pass or their name is always on the list, they don't have to wait in line like other processes. So when you get a shitload of them then everything else grinds to a halt.

 

Can you try a different music player to rule that out?

 

What audio adapter is installed?
Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling it through device manager?

 

Have you tried a clean Windows installation?

 

Has that thing got an old 12" 33 1/3 RPM hard drive?

 

That's what Im thinking...

 

Meee too, makes the most sense.

 

yeah I did that, it doesn't make a difference

 

This laptop is old it's got a Celeron 1.4ghz with 256mb RAM, it's like 4 yrs old, I don't think it's got sudden motion sensors. This is a budget laptop from 2005. I think only Lenovo and Apple had sudden mothion sensors

 

I was at first but i think its too old. I checked the dell website for software for that model, didn't see any software related to such.

 

Must be the HD about to fail.

 

18 posts an no one has done it yet?

Girl's laptop?

 

things not worth saving. for what she's paying you, and the cost of a new HD she's not far off from a 399 laptop.

 

There is no software involved in sudden motion sensing technology as far as I'm aware. It's something built into the system's firmware/BIOS. I don't know if they ever designed notebook hard drives to independently utilize this technology or not.

I did a quick Google search regarding the Inspiron 2200 and "sudden motion sensors", and nothing said yes but nothing said no. So I dunno. Apple started the whole motion sensor deal in early 2005...so it's possible, but maybe not likely.

Soo...if it's not a problem with the hardware changing state due to it thinking it's in a "sudden motion" condition, perhaps...

- Failing HD (my next guess)
- Loose Mini-PCI Wi-Fi card?
- Other loose component?

I found a forum that talked about somebody else having this problem under Ubuntu with an Inspiron 200, but there were no resolutions nor many helpful responses.

 

Very true!

 

^^^
I dunno, i thought you needed the software but i was assuming this based on my experience with lenovo, all the ones i've had, have the software called "active protection" which allows you to change settings on the sensors, etc and it doesn't appear to work without it.

But also, he said he could move the laptop to make the skipping stop..so thats another thing that made me think it doesn't have it.

"Then, I pickup the laptop and set it aside and I notice that the music starts to skip again, and then when I pick it up again it stops skipping."

 

she's a cute black girl, JJ knows her too.



AND NO I am NOT the gay dude on the right!!!!

 

yeah she just asked me that. I'm charging her $50 labor, I've already upgraded her RAM for $22(she's the girl that I bought the ram for from Newegg that took forever to get here). Then to install a hard drive backup the OS and reinstall it (using Windows Home Server), that's $55 from newegg, so $125. But I'm not 1005 sure that replaceing the hard drive will fix it.

Anyone know of a program that will tell which interrupt is using so much resources?

 

Probably wouldn't hurt to check the audio driver like sho_nuff said. if the dell website has a newer one, i'd try it.

 

You know, on my vista media center, i was getting some awful skips while having the wifi enabled but not connected, which were well documented online. But that was vista not sure if XP has/had this problem.

 

I just remembered...

Try uninstalling any modem drivers and disabling the built-in dial-up modem (if it exists). My uncle had a problem where his modem driver was causing an issue very similar to this (rendered his computer useless, basically). His entire computer would "freeze" (including the mouse cursor) at regular intervals and as soon as I removed and re-installed his modem driver, the problem was fixed.

Just a stab in the dark.

 

Maybe I'll make a video tonight so I can show you what happens when I move the laptop around. It only happens when I move it, so it's got to be a hardware problem. I don't think updating drivers or uninstalling drivers is gonna fix that.

 

I'm 100% sure it's caused by moving the laptop around, you's guys just have to see it to believe it.

Im just not 100% that it's caused by the hard drive it could be the CD drive

 

No, we believe you.

 

+1 - I believe you, too. I'm just throwing out ideas.

 

Are optical drives normally in PIO or DMA mode? Cause Device manager says the hard drive is DMA and the Optical is PIO.

 

Optical drives, depending on their age, should support DMA. You can change each channel's default transfer mode in the Device Manager. I don't remember the exact path (as I'm not in front of a Windows machine ATM), but all IDE channels have these options. I typically set everything to DMA unless I encounter problems.

 

yeah I set the optical as DMA but I guess I have to restart for it to take effect.

When I get back I'm gonna try disabling the Cd drive in the bios if I can and see what that does.

 

That's really hweird.

 

Can you eject the CD drive, or is it built-in to the machine?

 

Uninstall the audio adapter

 

Ubuntu Live CD. Runs in ram with no HD access. That might help isolate the hard drive for testing.

Or copy a large file from one folder to another and move the laptop around. The time remaining should skyrocket if it has to keep retrying.

 

As usual anachostic you always have good ideas. I'll try those later. Now where is my Linux live cd?