Video occasionally pausing

[skuz]

There is a computer that sometimes pauses for half a second in games, all games, but never in other application types. It doesn't crash, but the pause annoys the user and I can't find the source. No software takes resources while idle, no suspect software found.

A7N266-VM with 2.03 nforce drivers
ATI Radeon 8500 AGP 4x, tried with Catalyst 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2
Sound Blaster Live with latest driver.
Windows 2000 SP3
Directx 9

[joecls]

could be the refresh rate of your monitor. try changing the refresh rate and see if that helps, but beware of rates that the monitor won't support. see ya

[George VII]

Also, check to see how high anti aliasing is set. That can make a drastic difference in game performence, especially with those little twitches.