3D Slow Max

Ah, excuse me, but I seem to be having a most bizarre problem with 3DS Max and, for that matter, gMax. I didn't mind in gMax because it's free, but I'm rather miffed about this in 3DS. Basically, it will freeze any other program if I switch to it at any time after I begin running a Discreet program. (including the registration screen, which caused me no end of trouble trying to input my gMax registration code) It does not simply crash everything but itself, however. If I have a program running in the background like, say, the Windows XP Task Manager, it will continue running fine. But the instant I try to shift the focus to that window, it freezes up. It ceases redrawing itself, meaning that if I drag a window across I get the "hall of mirrors" effect. The only thing I can do is return to the Discreet program, which works just fine once I return the focus to it. Other programs will continue to work fine, just not that one that I just hung up. It will sit there doing nothing. It does not crash, it just freezes. More perplexingly, if I freeze, say, Notepad, and have the Task Manager in the background, Task Manager will not notice any spike in CPU usage nor will it ever detect that Notepad has Stopped Responding. The program silently freezes. Furthermore, even after I quit 3DS Max, the problem persists. If I click on the Start button, my taskbar will freeze. If I click on a desktop icon, the deskop will cease functioning. And with 3DS Max closed there is NOTHING safe to return to now and my only recourse is to reboot manually.

My system specs, for reference, are:

• Pentium 4 2.53 GHz
• 1 Gigabyte of RAM
• GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card (Gainward Golden Sample) with the new 5x.xx series drivers, though gMax did this with the old 4x.xx drivers too
• Sound Blaster Audigy
• Windows XP Pro

I also have a HighPoint RAID chip on the motherboard, and not the usual 2-channel one but the 4-channel monster, though I have not RAIDed anything. I mention this because there seems to be a constant, quiet access to my disk every few seconds even when I am not doing anything once a program has hung.

So... has anyone ever heard of anything like this before?

you need to go to discreet.com and download the update to cdilla. the version that comes with it causes many conflicts under XP.

Unfortunately, although my C-Dilla did indeed need to be upgraded, it does not seem to have solved the problem. Antivirus utilities are also not to blame as I've tried deactivating them. Any other ideas?