Hi Peter,
.....you have a serious problem in your PC; Your processor seems to have difficulties with multitasking, and switching tasks in general.
Just recovered from a crashing systems, two harddisks problems, Network Media Tank frustrations .......you tell me i have a problem with mine HTPC
But now seriously. Your suggestion about the processor gave me the idea that it has something to do with the energy saving software "Cool & Quiet" from AMD. I'm using an AMD ATHLON 64 X2 3800+ (65W) dual core processor. Compared to the E6600, price and consuming power is better. To get rid of the ventilation noise i am using a passive CPU cooler. Using "Cool & Quiet" lowers the CPU temperature. But it is dependent of your Vista Power Management settings. In mine case the setting was "Powersave" mode so the processor is running on 1MHz instead of 2MHz. Switching to a Balanced mode solves this gapless playback problem. (I am not sure if this switching is ok for the audio. But i need it to let the processor run in an save temperature range). So i hope you can optimise this processing time in the near future, so i can use this powersave setting again.
....other settings of Core Appointment help, and the best might be "No Appointment" as well as not setting the priorities ("Nothing") might help ....Shut off the Wallpaper,....
Before i changed the "Cool & Quiet" setting i have done some tests with the suggested settings. But these settings makes no difference! Still no capless playback.
Set the "Split files" at the minimum of 12MB
When i use this setting i get on a track of 6 minutes sometimes two times a short brake in the sound and i hear the sound of the external harddisk spinning up and down. Strange because i thought that all the tracks were playing from the internal harddisk! (Copy to XX-drive by standard). I have changed this “Split file at size” setting back to 700MB. Why do I hear this external harddisk spinning up and down during playback?