Computer is stuttering.

My old HTPC, went bang, simply refused to boot from HDD or CD, so I pulled the drive and cards out and stuck them in a redundant Celeron box.

Everything was fine apart from the occasional stuttering of sound and picture. Assuming it was the over-tasked 1.7gHz Celeron, I upgraded that to a 3.2 dual core Pentium.

The processor gets 6.8 on the Windows experience scale (or whatever it is called), but I still get occasional stuttering.

What's next? More RAM?

I have 2 DDR2 slots, currently with a 2 and 1gB chip.

What are the correct steps to take to diagnose my weak point?

All help much appreciated.

One more thing: the picture sometimes flashes back to an image that was there a couple of seconds back. This happens around the same time as any stuttering issues.

I know this sounds like a driver update required, but my Sapphire HD5570 has inherent driver problems whereas only the 11.2 driver version from Feb 2011 works with BBC HD.

No subsequent driver updates have fixed the issue. This card and driver combo was working fine in the old HTPC.

Sound isn't over HDMI BTW.

The motherboard ir running at 1033mHz according to the BIOS, however a quick scan Belarc says the bus clock is 267mHz.

That can't be right an it?

Can this be increased to make the system faster?

After reading that link, it seams like my FSB is at the top end.

Is my problem likely to e mobo related?

I have noticed stuttering when using Spotify which shouldn't really stretch the system at all.

Thanks for this. The system is running at 150-200micro seconds latency, then when it stutters the latency reading is off the scale.

The checker, suggests W-LAN, modes, internal sound devices, USB Host controllers etc.

I'll remove the wireless dongle and attach an extnal sound card first off.

Any other suggestions?

Disabled the wireless device and that fixed it. I'm using a wireless dongle which still operates, so all is well.

Thanks for your help.