My mouse, services.exe, and a bet.

[seretogis]

While playing Enemy Territory, seemingly randomly there will be a burst of cpu lag and my mouse cursor will pop up and block the crosshair area. I've monitored the task manager while this happens, and it seems that "services.exe" is the cause, every time. I've gone through my services list and tried to weed out the unnecessary / possibly problem-causing ones.

If you see anything in my services or process list that looks like it may be the cause of my issues, or something that looks fishy, please let me know. I'm running out of ideas here.

Services currently "Started":
COM+ Event System
DHCP Client
DNS Client
Event Log
Logical Disk Manager
Network Connections
NVIDIA Driver Helper Service
Plug and Play
Protected Storage
Remote Access Connection Manager
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Removable Storage
Security Accounts Manager
System Event Notification
Telephony
Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions
Workstation

Current Process List:
smss.exe
crss.exe
winlogon.exe
services.exe
lsass.exe
nvsvc32.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe (again..?)
WinMgmt.exe
trillian.exe
point32.exe
Explorer.EXE
devldr32.exe
taskmgr.exe
IEXPLORE.EXE

[Sion]

seretogis, you are running winXP, correct? if so, I am afraid that I cant be of specific help, as Im a 98 user. BUT, some general advice: that sure seems to be a LOT of possibly unnecessary programs/services running. I would suggest shutting down ANY and EVERY program not COMPLETELY necessary to run your gaming application.

[GakFace]

Yeah he's reformatting. BUT Ser, if you weren't doing that route, I'd also shut down everything not necissary.. and then add in a variable from there. That's how I'd track it down. Before I'd do that I'd simply uninstall and reinstall the game.

Hope it all works out.. have fun formatting hehe

[seretogis]

A clean clean clean fresh install of Windows 2000 is now up and running. It's kind of funny to think that I've finished installing my "necessities" and have 20gb more space free than I did pre-format. I can't think of where all that space went.

Anyhow, I haven't had a chance to play ET yet (have to download paks, ugh..) but I'll post back here if the problem is still lingering..

[charliex]

user the performance monitor to watch processes instead, services.exe really tells you nothing, nor does the process list.

not the performance monitor in ctrl alt del, the perfmon one, add all the current processes to it from process and include priviledged/processor and user time for all process instances

[seretogis]

It still happens, post-format. As for perfmon, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be looking for.. ?

[phukraut]

btw multiple svhost.exe's are normal, each one is bound to a different service.

[rubicon]

SERVICES.EXE is a required OS file for 2000/XP. Here are some articles about it - may or may not lead you to a solution.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=328885
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum...00/n1064128208

[Nizzle]

Are you running anti-virus software?

They periodically do disk scans which could lead you to IO block. Disable Norton or McAfee before playing if so.

[charliex]

perfmon is a very useful tool, it seems a little daunting at first but basically its a more complete version of taskmanagers performance graph.

this is for windows XP, its similar or the same elsewhere

go to start / run type
perfmon <enter>
perfmon will now startup it should say "System Monitor" on the right and youll see some default graphs, delete them by clicking at the bottom fo the screen that lists each graph individually by name, click on each name and press the del key

Now click the + thats near the top of the window, theres a funky looking X next to it that should be greyed out

change "performance object" to
"Process"

Then under "Selected counters from list" multiple shift select
"% priviledged time"
"% processor time"
"% user time"

then select "All instances"

click "Add"
click "close"

i prefer the text view so if you do, click the little document view, its the one between the coloured bar graph and the + you clicked earlier.

Now all thise figures that are changing is whats going on currently, the line chart will show you a history, run your app, or do what ever it is you want to diagnose whos eating up time, and then watch what happens in that graph (line mode is best for this part)
Whichever process jumps up in usages are the ones that are doing something, its possible you won't see anything as it might be a device driver or something hiding, but this is your best shot.

[ratbastid]

Originally posted by seretogis
A clean clean clean fresh install of Windows 2000 is now up and running. It's kind of funny to think that I've finished installing my "necessities" and have 20gb more space free than I did pre-format. I can't think of where all that space went.

You did back up your porn, didn't you?

[seretogis]

Originally posted by ratbastid
You did back up your porn, didn't you?

And mp3s, of course.

I think I've found the problem -- one of my USB ports seems to be dead or dying, and if anything is plugged into it the other USB port (which my mouse is in) will go berserk every so often.