so i went over to the computer store this morning and picked up a gigabyte k7 triton with the kt600, because i was tired of this and thought i'd try to just swap the mainboard and be done with it.
so i get home, and decide i'm going to try it one more time. i start ripping and tearing stuff apart... and i think it actually works now. holy crap. i've gotten a couple bluescreens since, with the same usual error "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL". but i'm not having the pauses.
i dunno what i did, i pulled everything out and put in just the vid card. not sure why that's working this time, but i'm gonna go with it i guess.
i'm running on the onboard sound now, but maybe it was the sound card. which is funny, because i pulled that out before and it still had problems. or i was hallucinating.
or, maybe i'm a doofus. who knows. i guess we'll see if it still works through tonight.
it also seems to be running a little smoother as well, and doesn't seem to want to freeze up in the os like usual, which got worse when i ran it to 2.4. but now it seems fine at 2.4, so i might even try to push up the bus again.
edit: well, i still get some _occasional_ bsods from desert combat (bf1942), and it hard locks when i try dod. but at least it seems the random pauses are gone, so maybe i just need a clean install.