EMC causing occasional hard disk grinding

[Septfox]

ugh it is an ungodly hour in the morning, I'm gonna try to make this brief so I can gtfb2bed

 

Enhanced Music & Control, for whatever reason, is occasionally spazzing out. It'll be working perfectly fine, then suddenly the game will start pausing every 2-3 seconds, grinding the hard drive for a moment. It's only a moment, certainly, but it's more than long enough to be incredibly annoying and make lockpicking impossible.

 

Also seemingly related as it generally happens around the same time, if I happen to get into combat it completely freaks while doing certain things. DR5 criticals seem to do it the worst; the game can completely lock for 5-10 seconds at a stretch while grinding away at the hard drive. It doesn't seem to actually be loading anything, as it's generally well into interiors when this happens, so I don't know what it's doing.

 

As I said at the start, this only happens occasionally. Other times, everything works as well as it always has.

 

Now, for the most interesting part: opening the audio menu while this is going on (during either the normal-mode momentary pauses or in-between the combat full-on panic attacks) makes the game (the game itself mind, not the audio) stutter like mad. Turning the music volume all the way down fixes the problem, but it comes back when the volume is raised back above 0. However, "scrubbing" the volume control up and down for a few seconds makes the audio stutter all over, than magically fixes the problem until the track changes again.

 

I'm using the latest version (79b), but the problem appears with the two previous versions as well. I'm also using BMS and its prerequisite SoundCommands, but disabling them both makes absolutely no difference. Removing EMS makes the problem go away completely. Full load order:

Oblivion.esm
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed.esm
HorseCombatMaster.esm
BetterMusicSystem.esm
Atmospheric Oblivion.esp
ActorsInEmotions.esp
Unofficial Oblivion Patch.esp
LoadingScreens.esp
HrmnsOblivionScriptOptimizationv1.0.esp
Toggleable Quantity Prompt.esp
[GFX]_Initial_Glow-all.esp
Get Wet v0.92.esp
Xero's Fame Indicator.esp
Landmarks, w Wells.esp
CTAddPose_osr1.esp
CTAddPose_osr2.esp
CTAddPose_osr3.esp
Lynges Unlimited Death Reload Time.esp
NO_Recoil_Stagger.esp
ResetEmotionAfterCombat.esp
CTAddPose_Gaff_01.esp
CTAddPose_Gaff_02.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Vanilla Race.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Merged Hair Modules.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Merged Eye Modules.esp
Beautiful People 2ch-Ed Sheogorath Eye.esp
CTAddPose_OTpair2.esp
x117race.esp
IWR-Windows.esp
IWR-Lights.esp
IWR-Shutters.esp
Lop-ears Elf_mini.esp
Mayu's Animation Overhaul.esp
Streamline 2.1.esp
SummonChest_v2.1.esp
RenGuardOverhaul.esp
Combat TLB.esp
Breathing Idle Animations.esp
fovset.esp
Sounds of Cyrodiil.esp
NaRae Pose - 01 Guide Book.esp
NaRae Pose - 01.esp
NaRae Pose - 02.esp
runspeed.esp
FLY_winterclothes.esp
Detect Life Shader.esp
vamprem.esp
Deadly Reflex 5 - Timed Block and 250% damage.esp
DeadlyReflex 5 - Combat Moves.esp
Natural_Habitat_by_Max_Tael.esp
Natural_Vegetation_by_Max_Tael.esp
Natural_Water_by_Max_Tael.esp
Natural_Weather_HDR_by_Max_Tael.esp
SKShair.esp
outfit.esp

 

Yea, it's a mess and I need to go through and reorder it. But this problem aside, like I said, everything's been working fine. No crashes, no freezes, few anomalies (the most annoying being that all attack and most idle animations reset to vanilla after a reload). This is the only thing that's acting up.

 

So, any ideas?