I hate to keep reviving this thread, but I'm getting desperate. I tried a completely fresh XP install on the 250GB with the 150GB not connected at all, and it continued to stutter. I'm thinking of getting a new power supply, but I don't want to spend any more money unless I have to.
However, I did discover that since I got the new motherboard, my DVD and CD burner are working, so I guess it wasn't a complete waste.
Is there any posibility at all that this could be a heat-related problem? I don't have any real reason to believe that it is, but heat seems to cause a lot of unexpected problems. While using firefox, AIM, and Winamp, the temp. is around 38C.
Also, I bought a slightly updated version of my old motherboard, but it's basically the same. Is it possible that some motherboards just don't like 250GB hdd's? I still might format my 150GB and do a fresh XP install on that one to see if it will do it for the 150GB too. I'm just getting tired of formatting and doing XP installs.
And finally, when I run off a livecd (Knoppix), I don't seem to have any stuttering problems. However, I can't be sure because there's nothing really CPU-intensive that I could think of to do in Knoppix. However, I ran music, web pages, and played one of the little games on there all at the same time, and it didn't seem to stutter at all. So that would lead me to believe it's hard drive related, but then you'd think a fresh format would fix the problem...
Any help is appreciated. Again, I'm getting desperate.