video playbakk glitches

[pulaski]

Hey@all!

You know, since recently I have a annoying problem with the video playbakk of any kind and wonder if any of you had a similar one:

During the video playbakk (Real, Quicktiime, WMA, avi etc.) every 30-60 sec (sometimes 2/3 min) the playbakk cracks for a couple of seconds, the image freezes (the sound playbakk is OK), shortly after this the video goes on as usual. As you may know it's very annoying to watch a slide show instead of a smoothly shown movie. :/

I tried already to remove all the codecs and put them on again. Without success so far. I even installed a new AGP/graphic card/chipset drivers but it didn't help either.

Any hints would be appreciated.

[UncasMS]

is dma active?

any background tasks running?

[pulaski]

Originally posted by UncasMS
is dma active?

any background tasks running?

Yes, the DMA mode is active and the only bakkground app which is running is the norton firewall.

[UncasMS]

try ffdshow as palybackfilter and bsplayer als player software

both demand very little system resources

how fast is your machine btw?
did you check system resources during playback?
which player did you use?

[pulaski]

The funny thing is that a week ago or so all worked properly Also I did format and re-install WinXp but of course the problem remained unsolved - the video playbakk isn't smooth as it should be.

I have a Duron 1.3, 512 RAM so I think it should be enough...already cuzz it functioned properly bakk then. I use all sorts of players - nero showtime, divix playa, Vplayer, Media player.

But thank you very much for your hints Uncas. I will check further the system recources during the playbakk. Still I have absolutely no idea what causes this glitch.

It *seems* indeed that something is disturbing the playbakk but what would that be? Dunno

[sfheath]

I'm not sure if spyware shows up in Task Manager. Might be worth running spybot or some similar tool?

[UncasMS]

in order to check what kind of additional programs might run, you could got to *start* => run and then type msconfig

go to the *systemstart* tab and see if you'll find any entries you're not familiar with

unchecking them followed by a system restart should disable loading certain commands/tools/programs

actually you're only disbaling and not completely removing them

thus you could easily re-activate any given entry by checking the box again

if in doubt about any entries you might find in msconfig, report back

you might very well deal with some adware crap like sfheath said

on the other hand you might need up2date chipset driver (like via hyperion or alike) or some windows patches

[sfheath]

MSCONFIG!! I was racking my brains earlier trying to remember that name! btw seems Windows 2000 doesn't have it

new work pc - new learning curve

[UncasMS]

true, 2k doesnt have this command

using the win98exe might help or even better use this:

startup control panel => http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

it's a great tool

[pulaski]

Thanks guys. I already deactived needless apps running in the bakkground. There wasn't much to deactivate I must say.

What I did additionally was a tracking of system resources, look how the graph looks like during the video playbakk:



I think it's very easy to tell when the glitches appear - the bold curve is the processor load, the two curves in the bakkground are writes/s and reads/s. As you see they remain more or less constant during the whole thing.

The glitches appeared exactly when the processor load rapidly fell down from normal 15-20% to 3-5% for a couple of seconds and then the playbakk went on as usual and came bakk to its normal load.

Well, one thing is clear from there - it's not the DMA mode or any HDD that causes the problem.

Any thoughts?

[UncasMS]

in case you have udma66 drives, maybe this patch can help: http://www.pureperformance.com/regpa...e%20UDMA66.reg

++++++++

btw what about your mainboard driver?
are they up2date?

are you by chance running a via cipset and a soundblaster live card?