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    Choppy Media Playback on Aspire 3100 Notebook

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by wscc05, Jan 14, 2007.

  1. wscc05

    wscc05 Newbie

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    Dear Forum Members,

    I have a 5 month old Acer Aspire 3100 notebook. Suddenly, about two to three weeks ago (between Christmas and New Year's) my computer began to “freeze” a few seconds or minutes into playing any type of media file. Now, when I say “freeze,” what I mean is that the video becomes choppy (the computer drops frames or displays the same frame for a number of seconds or the video just SLOWS down) Sometimes the audio is also choppy, this primarily occurs while using flvplayer to play videos downloaded from Youtube or Dailymotion using the VideoDownloader extension for Firefox. When I first began to download videos in this manner in early November, everything was fine. But then, suddenly, I started having this problem and it seemed to get worse and worse.

    The Youtube/Dailymotion problem occurs whether I use Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera. When on Youtube, both the video and audio cuts out and is choppy, but while on Dailymotion, only the video is choppy, the audio plays fine. I then did a system restore on the 9th to a date before the problem occurred, I believe it was December 13th or 15th. That helped the problem a little bit, but did not completely remedy it. Before, a 3-4 minute Youtube video would have the problem in question about 6-10 times. After the system restore, the problem occurred only 2-4 times. But, since it still did not go away completely, I decided to do an Acer Factory Restore. That is the stage that I am at now. I have not messed with settings, done any updates, or installed much software at all (only OpenOffice, Firefox, Adobe Flash Player, ACA Screen Recorder, flvplayer, and Belarc Advisor). THE PROBLEM HAS PERSISTED, nonetheless.

    No matter what media player I use, these problems persist. I experience problems even when playing .MP3 and .WMA files on Windows Media Player. The audio plays fine, but the visualizations are slow and choppy.

    I don't know what is the cause and what is the result, but EVERY time this problem occurs, the CPU usage goes to 90% or 100%. However, the process that goes the highest is the media player or the browser I am using to play the media. And because I have done a virus scan and spyware scan, I am sure that it is not malware. The problem seems to happen at random times and random intervals.

    So, in all, I have also did the following:

    I tested my Internet connection at DSLReports, and it is 2900/300 kbps, so that must not be the problem; I am sure that that is fast enough.
    Also, I am sure that I have enough RAM, 1 gig should be plenty to play small media files.
    I did a McAfee virus scan and Windows Defender spyware scan before I did the system restore, and both scans came up with nothing. I have also checked the processes running in the background and none appear to be malicious.
    The video codecs appear to be working properly and I appear to have all of the necessary ones to play the files that I (attempt to) play.
    The video driver should not be the source of the problem, because I updated the driver before the problem occurred, and now, the driver is an older driver that came with the computer, yet the problem persists.
    The hard drive should not be the source of the problem either, because it persists even when playing media files from a AC/DC powered external USB hard drive.

    I know that the next recommendation is probably a CLEAN re-install and not just a FACTORY RESTORE, but I don't have an install CD and don't want to take the time to do an install if I don't ABSOLUTELY have to.

    I am extremely frustrated and would really appreciate your help!

    Thank you in advance,
    C. Meglio
    Disgruntled Computer User

    email: meglioc1 (AT) wscc (DOT) com

    Computer Stats/ Basic Info:
    Acer Aspire 3100 notebook
    1024 mb RAM shared (128 video RAM)
    AMD Mobile Sempron 3200+ (1600 mhz) (512 kb cache)
    ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP
    60 GB HDD Intenal + 80 GB External
    MATSHUSHITA DVD-RAM UJ-850S

    Picture of Problem here: http://forum.videohelp.com/images/guides/p1641848/problem1.bmp
     
    wscc05, Jan 14, 2007
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  2. Zoomastigophora

    Zoomastigophora Notebook Evangelist

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    You can try updating to the latest drivers and installing just the drivers. No Catalyst Control Center. I've found that CCC has weird problems with my computer, from preventing me from resuming from standby to randomly spawning more CLI.exe's every now and then for about 15 minutes, lagging the crap out of everything. This should be the link for the driver install for your Xpress 1100. While you're there, you can also try updating your Southbridge drivers. Hope this helps :)

    http://ati.amd.com/support/drivers/xp/integratedip-xp.html
     
    Zoomastigophora, Jan 15, 2007
    #2