stuttering- firewire 1814, emachines 6805

[mrufino1]

Hi, I have an emachines 6805, mpowered 7.1, firewire 1814. I recently reformatted the computer to a music only machine, fresch xp pro, only programs on it are PTMP, reason, soundforge, ableton live lite, and other music programs, as well as open office. This laptop used to work perfectly for protools mpowered once I ironed out all of the 1814 issues... Wireless is disabled all the time on this machine, and I followed all of the musicxp.net tuning tips. ANyway, when I open a plugin, the playback stutters and slows down (sounds like too much timestretching does) until the plugin window is open. Any ideas as to why this might be happening? I also get distortion or stuttering when the system har drive works, and if I use the 1814 and play back something from a CD or windows media player. it also skips. It is not a firewire issue, and I have, as I said, ironed out most of the weird issues and workarounds necessary with the 1814, but it was runnning smoothly until I reformatted. Thanks-Mark

[Mozepy]

Did you update all your drivers after the reformat?

[mrufino1]

Yes, I tried. The video drivers, downloaded from ati's website, will not install, saying they found a driver or something. No matter what I did, they wouldn't install. I never had this problem before the reformat though, same everything except the computer had lots of other, non music programs on it, as well as internet, etc., none of which it has now.

[joeR]

Hey, I know you!
I recently migrated to the same 1814 / M-Powered platform and am horribly disapointed with regard to stuttering, etc. when used with my Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop and a FW drive.
However, I'm willing to put my expectations aside and roll up my sleeves, pull out the magnifying glass, and hit the forums for an answer (hopefully.)
I'll check into that site you mention later in this thread, but I thought I'd ask about the current status of your setup. Maybe you could help me cut to the chase?
thanks - joeR-