Pentium4 Denormalization Issues

[Symbaman]

Hello. I have a new Dell P4 (3.0 ghz, 1 gig ram, (2) 160 SATA hds, ATI X600 Pro video card w/256MB Ram, Canopus ADVC 300 converter, M-Audio Firewire 410 1394 audio I/O, Intel MB)

 

Doing A/V production with Sony Vegas (video) & Cubase SX (audio), I noticed some timing skips and noticed that the CPU would intermittenly spike to 100%. I tried playing a MIDI file with no plugins added with the same result. This would also happen from Vegas's timeline. Prior to purchasing the P4 all my work was done on a PIII 800 w/ 512 ram. This system runs like a charm still, but the ram is maxxed out, thus the new PC purchase.

 

I started looking on the Net and found some info about pentium 4 "denormalization" problems (AMD as well) that affect certain systems and plugins. This is an excerpt of the description: "The problem is caused by certain plugins performing very precise mathematical calculations with very small numbers close to zero (silence). This causes the CPU to go into high precision mode, using up all available processing power. This is known as denormalization. (http://phonophunk.phreakin.com/articles/pentium4-denormalization.php?pg=1#intro-for-users)

 

I've tried to optimize my system as much as I can, and it really runs great except for that spike, which obviously is affecting my timing and driving me bonkers. Has anyone experienced this or have pointers or tips? Thank you very much.