Thinkpads Forum

I have recently been experiencing a cycling audio sound or processing stutter on my T500 - not consistent, but seems to pattern when happening. It seems to come and go but increase with continued active time use (left on).

I ran all the PC doctor tests and even then, the glitch would occur - but, everything passed. I removed and reinstalled the audio drives/software...still appears. So, I believe this may still be software or even driver related. But, how do I track this down?

My system originally came with Windows Vista and I did the 'free' upgrade to Win 7 Pro 64bit. I have had games installed prior and after the upgrade. I did all the patches etc from Lenovo and Microsoft. I also installed development software in Win 7 - Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 Standard (which was a bit of a pain and some huge after install patches), and Visual Studio 2008. SQL Express is still on the system. Also, I have the sql reporting services running. With the development software, I opted for everything.

When these glitches happen - I do see consistent hard drive activity spikes (short), but really nothing in the processor use % or memory %. Memory is around 40 to 50% - consistent.

First, has anyone else experienced this stutter in the system? Second, is there any software that can possibly isolate the glitch? Third, do I have to start backing out software etc til the system returns to normal? Forth, bite the bullet and do a clean Win 7 install and not the upgrade?

I'd guess intermittent high CPU usage spikes are contributing to this problem. What I would do is to clone the entire drive to a backup, then install W7 fresh to see if the problem still occurs. If it does not, then add one thing at a time until you find the issue. This could take a long time if it is highly intermittent and nothing is logged in the system logs or no error appears. The good thing about a backup cloned drive is that you can pop it in if you need to get some work done.

Harryc ... thanks, I'm going to hold off just a bit. Good recommendation...

I'm not seeing a cpu spike. After watching everything - I can't say it jives with harddrive use either - just not seeing a huge resource consumption. But I have noticed that IE 32 bit takes up some memory. IE 64 bit is less. Also Adobe Flash puttered out - I have read that Adobe is slow to do much for 64bit systems - at least MS.

I just uninstalled everything Adobe and just have to get back and run the system to see if that makes a difference. This sound/system stutter cycles in and out - pattern, I just hope its not hardware - but like I said, none of the PC doctor tests are showing anything (even when it happens during the testing).

Okay... here is what I found.

Adobe Flash - nothing made for IE 64bit. Sounds like thats been in the works for sometime but nothing showing.

However, I tracked it down to SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition - Reporting Services. Anyone know if there is a specific config setting to allow this application to run smoothly, please drop a note.

Glad its not the hardware ... sigh of relief