What could be causing this?

A few months ago I purchased a AMD athlon XP 1600+ system, it has been running well until a week ago.
All of the games that I have been playing (Counter Strike, Dark Reign 2, BattleZone 2, MOHAA) now are unplayable.
It runs well for 3 seconds and then will sit there for just over 30 seconds before it will continue, then it will do the same again and again...

After this first started to happen I tried defragging my hard drives, updated the video card drives, removed all of the eye candy on xp, even re-formatted. But nothing seems to work. Does anyone have a clue what could be causing this? Could it be the video card?

The sytem specs;
AMD Athlon XP 1600+
ECS Motherboard
256MB PC133 RAM
32MB AGP NVIDIA Geforce2 MX/MX400
20GB Seagate
40GB Western Digital
Hitachi DVD-ROM
Samsung 52x CD-R/W

Thanks in advance
Yuri.

EDIT: Sorry forgot to mention that I am running Windows XP Professional

Have you disabled/set to manual all the unnecessary services that may be running and chewin' up your RAM? If not, take a real close look at Black Viper's suggestions:
http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

Do you do a regular cleanup of temp files,TIF,cookies,etc. and run chkdsk and defrag?

Also,,with XP,you'd be much better off with another 256Megs of RAM onboard...:)

Ridgerunr, thank you for your post.
I have followed that guide and disabled the services that they mention, but there is no difference.
I clean up the temp files, etc once a week.
I think that i will upgrade the memory with 1GB of DDR-RAM.
The thing that I cannot understand is why it was running well before.
Yuri.

i gig of ram will do no good. get a 128 or 256 meg video card.

and, pc 3200 ram

In your first post you said your using PC133 RAM. Better be sure your mobo will support DDR RAM before you shell out the bucks...

512MB of DDR 2700 on my main machine with the Asus A7V266-e board works just fine with XP-home. Same OS on my second box with the Asus A7V133-a board and 512MB of PC133 SDRAM works just a' tad bit slower,but can hardly see the difference.

In my opinion, a video card over 128MB is a waste. And if you go for the 'big' boys,you may need to install a power connector directly to these cards and your mobo has to support AGP 8X or possibly no go. I have the ATI AIWonder 8500DV in my main box and it does about everything from gaming to capturing,editing and burning video VCD's without a hitch.

Ridgerunr, my motherboard supports upto 1GB of either DDR-RAM or SDRAM.
I think that the problems could be caused by the video card, as while I was typing a reply to a post the monitor came up with no signal and I had to leave it off for 1/2hr before there was any signal. I have tried another monitor and same problem.
Yuri.

Same problem,two different monitors,one known to be good. Sure sounds like your vid card has taken a dive then... :(

Might try re-seating it,can't think of any other 'easy' fix...

What's the model and version of your ecs motherboard? I'm assuming it's K7S5A x.x That motherboard is known to have some issues with poor quality power supplies and problems w/ chipset overheating.

What's your PSU ratings? Check the following rails for the amps and voltage:

+3.30
+5.00
+12.00

The amps for the rails should be labeled on the PSU and voltages are accessible w/i the BIOS. Maybe the video card is overheating from bad fan or loose heatsink or inadequate ventilation in the case. Here's a site that's purely dedicated to the K7S5A:

http://pub140.ezboard.com/k7s5amotherboardforum

Thank you ridgerunr and kxn for your posts.
Ridgerunr, I have reseated the video card and things seem to be working at the moment.
Kxn, I cannot see a version number on the motherboard, but you are correct it is a K7S5A.
The powersupply is 300w.
As for the voltages I found these under the hardware monitor menu in the BIOS. (Not sure if they are the ones you mentioned).

Vcore 1.760V
Vcc 2.5V 2.496V
Vcc 3.3V 3.344V
Vcc 5V 5.053V
+12V 12.480V / 12.544V
SB3V 3.480V
-12V - 11.967V / 12.049V
SB5V 5.134V
VBA7 3.504V
System Fan Speed 2343 RPM
CPU Fan Speed 4682-4821 RPM
System Temp 28C/82F
CPU Temp 46C/114F

Are the system and cpu temp ok? These increased by 4C after 40mins of use.
Thanks
Yuri.

Let's hope the re-seating solved it. Sometimes the contacts can get corroded over time.
Your temps and voltages look ok. A lot can depend on ambient(room)temp also.
A 300Watt PSU is pretty marginal imo. You might consider one in the 400Watt range with what your running. Enermax and Antec are well built and reliable. you can look at the specs(and many others) here: http://www.newegg.com/app/manufactor...alog=58&DEPA=1

:)

Ridgerunr, thanks for your post.
I will try the video card for a few days I see how it goes, the only thing I noticed is when the case was open the video card was really warm after about 5 minutes.
I will look into the 400w power supply, over the next few days I will go into some of the local computer stores.
Thanks again.
Yuri.

Might i also suggest that when you have the case open,point a table type fan to blow inside. If this solves the problem,then it's most likely an overheating issue. If you like and want to keep your present video card and if it doesn't have it's own fan. Might consider getting a chipset type fan that's also for vid cards and mount to the cards chipset heatsink...

Overheating may be the problem although as said, it can be also the vid card connectors are not properly seated, etc...

If better ventilation and the vid card is reseated, and you now don't have problem, then it may NOT be your PSU.

But having a better one isn't a bad idea. I'm currently running my K7S5A Pro (v5.0) using an old IBM psu (pulled from an ibm computer, rated at 250W w/ 120W on +3.3 & +5.00) and my computer is running perfectly stable even w/ Radeon 9500 np, (2) hd, and a burner. Can't afford a new one right now.

It's even better than my "newer" psu which was a Sparkle 350W. Mobo refused to boot w/ it after two wks.

You can find the version somewhere around the edge of the mobo or near the agp connector (that's where mine is but I'm not sure about yours).

There's a bug in the K7S5A 1.x and 3.x BIOS that prevent the CPU from using SSE. You can get an update which will fix that at the link I gave earlier. The Pro (v5.0) doesn't need an update.

==Take precautions when flashing BIOS===

Thank you for your posts.
I think that it could be a heat related problem as I ran the computer for an hour then removed the side of the case and touched the video card and it was really hot.
Ridgerunr, the video card does have a fan on it but I am thinking about getting a fan that fits a expansion slot on the back and placing that above the video card.
Thanks
Yuri.

I have taken a picture of the motherboard (sorry it is a little blured but it was too dark if I didnt use the flash)
Where should I put an extra fan?
Thanks
Yuri.