Before I even start describing my problem, I'm going to list my system specs, just so I don't forget to
Intel Pentium 4 1.6Ghz (willamette)
Motherboard(according to Everest) Intel Pendleton D845PT
1 GB DDR 266 RAM
Windows XP SP2
BFG Nvidia Geforce FX 5500OC
Sound Blaster X-Fi XTremeGamer
160GB WD Caviar partitioned 80GB each into C: and D:
Now, on to the problem. I didn't search the forum because I was unsure of exactly what to search for, so if another thread addresses my issues, please point me in that direction.
I first noticed this glitch after I first installed Need for Speed Underground 2. Anyway, the game ran fairly smooth, but every few minutes the entire game would freeze for at least 20 to 30 seconds, sometimes longer. I thought it was limited to the game and placed "fix underground 2" on my todo list (in my mind). In any case, it started happening on some newer games I got as well. So I decided, fine, I'll just play my older games, and started Quake 3. To my frustration it happened there too! which is odd on account of it working perfectly fine before!
In an attempt to determine if this was some background process stealing timeslices, I ran Process explorer in the background and ran Quake 3 until it froze. In my impatience I pressed alt-Tab while it was frozen in addition to control-alt -delete. Nothing happened. When it finally recovered the screen was flashing the quake 3 screen and a dark green color. I managed to exit quake 3 only to be greeted with a small messagebox, "the driver nv4_disp.dll has stopped working properly. It is recommended that you close all programs and restart your computer." Which I dismiss. I bring up Process explorer only to find that quake3.exe was actually hogging all the timeslices during the whole plateau.
Strangely enough, Need For Speed:High Stakes works perfectly, and so does ZSNES and Project64.
Steps I've taken to alleviate this problem include I've also installing the latest Nvidia driver (no change), scheduling chkdsk /r for both drives on reboot and restarting (allowing them to run to completion, of course), as well as defragmenting both drives. I just tested it again and Quake3 froze almost immediately upon starting (I'm using it as a test game because it doesn't take long at all to start). While it was frozen I noticed that the HD activity light was flashing intermittently (not solid green, but a blink every second or two. What I find strange is that I am also running more programs in the background then before(usually none), which might be why it doesn't take 2 to 3 minutes plus to freeze.
honestly I am suspecting the hard drive, but chkdsk /r didn't find anything... In order to confirm or deny my suspicion, I am going to temporarily disable the pagefile. (actually, this will just confirm or deny wether it is the pagefile. Oh well. It's something...) anyway, would anybody have any other suggestions as to the cause of this problem?