FFXI Chokes occasionaly!!! HELP This is driving me insane!!!Follow

I HAVE A VERY SERIOUS ISSUE WITH FFXI CHOKING AND STUTTERING EVERY FEW MINUTES,
I SUSPECT THIS IS HARD DISK RELATED AS IT SEEMS TO CHOKE DURING READING OF THE HARD DISK! This problem is driving me to the brink of insanity. I cannot properly isolate the problem but I deem it hard ware related, as I've reinstalled FF 2 times now and have been having this problem

For more details than I can post here please check out this forum I posted a HUGE article about my problem on nvidia.com

---> FFXI choking forum on nvidia.com <---

Description of problem: I can move around graphics are very good and high FPS and there is no problem running the game, but every couple of minutes or minute the game freezes/locks up for about 2-3 seconds... then returns to normal. This KEEPS HAPPENING and will not go away under any circumstances. It is not Internet lag, i have reset my routers a lot and nobody is using our connection. I have triued using my neighbors network and the same thing happens. This happens REGARDLESS Of my graphics settings, I have tried many different experiments to see if it was the graphics and it isnt. I have done many different experiments to see if it's my power source (my video card requires 20amps+ on 12volts) and it wasnt. Ive tried moving my hard drive away from fans or any strange interference, fans, etc - it wasnt that either. Ive tried turnining some of the lighting in my case off to maybe give more power to the gpu, it wasnt that either.

Literally I have tried everything and FFXI still chokes a lot!!!!!!

here is a picture of my CPU graph taking a plunge during one of the freezes:
[img]http://www.geocities.com/jriley1337/problem.jpg[/img]

My system is
AMD64 x2 3800+ dual 2.0ghz dual 512kb cache
1gb PC3500 Kingston HyperX memory in 2 sticks 433mhz 2.5cl
256mb DDR nVidia GeForce 7900 GT OC pci-express
ASUS A8N-E motherboard
Plextor all in one drive.
Western Digital 10,000RPM Raptor 74gb hard drive SATA
windows xp professional

I am posting here today to seek assistance with a very seriously irritating issue. I have spent well over 5 hours researching this issue and done manythings including:

Uninstalling DirectX and Final Fantasy XI multiple times
Got a new Power Supply for my computer thinking the one I had wasnt good enough
Re-routering power to my PCI-E and periphreals so that they are all wired well





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[i]Edited, Jun 30th 2006 at 1:18pm EDT by icetek

Dude a majority of the time ive suspected the raptor to be the problem, it appears to choke while loading character models and it happens a LOT less when
"Character models loaded" option in FFXI config is set to it's lowest... im calling WD today and finding out what I can do ... thanks!

POL wants you to email the following information

Start -> Run -> Type "dxdiag"

Click "Save all information"

Save dxdiag.txt to your desktop and email it to:
usinfocenter@pol.com

its important you do it ASAP ... they need to get it fixed before the update mid july....

I believe I'm experiencing a similiar thing where my game is choking. Now I've played this game for over a year on PC (on the same card) and I have never had this lag spike happen to me. So I don't believe it's a card issue, I'm hoping that it's a bug in the game they can correct. Now I can't confirm this is related to character models as this seems to happen at random times as I'm walking around a zone or battling or just standing around doing nothing. I haven't changed any settings on my card, internet, or FFXI at all, why this started now I have no idea. My friend stated he was having similar problems yesterday, he also has the same ISP and video card manufacturer as I do (verizon and nvidia). Its gotten to be very frustrating and I hope they are able to fix this soon.

anyone who experiences choking of any kind please submit the information to playonline so they can debug your game and fix the problem