Problems with latency and crashing?

Running Vista 32 bit home prem. with a brand new reformat on the OS. I started hearing crackling noises in an online game about 2 weeks ago with a lot of lag. I downloaded DPC latency detector and I was capping out with spike through the roof. Thought it was drivers so I updated all that I thought it could be and computer ran fine for about a week then I started hearing the same popping and crackling again and I knew what was coming. Looked at DPC and yet again spike through the roof. I decided to do a reformat and still now the problem persists.



I am running an Intel Duel core CPU and I noticed in device manager that Advanced Programmable Interrupt Controller and High Precision Event Timer doesn't have any drivers and I assume they're not working. I have the service pack 1 and 2. I tried using windows update to get them and says best drivers are installed but yet when I click on them it says there are no drivers installed. and I tried looking online everywhere for the drivers to no avail.



I have updated the motherboard through the Intel website and literally spent 4 days now trying everything I can possibly think of and I'm at a loss. I just don't know what to do because I really don't want to spend any money now close to Christmas.



At this point sometimes it takes windows forever to load, sometimes it loads right up. Sometimes I can go for a good 3-5 mins watching the latency and everything will be fine, then all the sudden BAM red spikes through the roof and sometimes will even lock up and crash.



If anyone has some great advise I am absolutly ready for some and would be forever indebted and thankful.Problems with latency and crashing?
is your network card on board or is it a pci slot card?