Online videos skip and jump on my M17x

I have Vista 64 installed on my M17x with all the right software and drivers. I can play Enemy Territory at full resolution without ever losing a single frame and without ever hearing one skip in the sound bytes, but I can't watch 15 seconds of a video from Hulu full screen without significant jumping and skipping. I've tried this in Opera, Firefox, IE, and Safari. Yet I can go over to the 4 year old Mac I have on another desk and watch the same videos without losing a single frame.

All my Nvidia settings are factory, except for some special settings for ET. I tried those same settings with the browsers in question, but I get the same skipping and jumping. When I watch videos on Youtube full screen, I also get skipping and jumping with the sound. Frightfully annoying considering the expense of this thing.

Anyone have ideas?

 

Make sure your Flash Player is updated. For the other browsers, use this link

While you are at Adobe's site, also update Shockwave to make sure its up to date as well.

What display driver are you running?

 

Hi BatBoy,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. Been pretty busy. I just updated the Flash and Shockwave players according to the links you provided. They were already recently installed, so it's possible they were already up to date. The skipping and jumping of both sound and video continues to occur when I play low or high quality web-based content in full screen mode, and often even in the default embedded mode. Quite frustrating.

Here's my Driver information for NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M:

Provider: NVIDIA
Date: 7/18/2009
Version: 8.15.11.8640
Signer: microsoft windows hardware compatibility publisher

Thanks for taking an interest in this, and take care,

-----Erin

 

There seems to be a more recent driver available here:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebook_winvista_win7_x64_195.62_whql.html

But I also know that there can be laptop compatibility issues with untested drivers. What are your thoughts? Is it worth a try?

 

Added note. I use Cyberlink PowerDVD to play DVDs (haven't tested a bluray yet as I don't have one handy). Tried playing a couple DVDs and I've encountered no skipping or jumping of either sound or video. Works just fine.

This makes it especially puzzling that web-based video content skips and jumps like mad. Also, my WiFi card usually gets about 600KB/Sec download speed, so I don't think it's that either.

 

I did a full backup and tried installing the latest GTX 200M series drivers from NVIDIA. The problem is still occurring as before. No change. Web content is always very choppy, especially at full screen, and there's a lot of sound stu-tut-tut-tutt-ter-ter-ter-ter. I also tried looking for an update to the audio drivers, but I wasn't able to locate anything. Very damned frustrating. I can't begin to imagine what the problem could be. Video plays fine from DVD, after all, and I have no problems with ET set to the highest resolution it supports with all effects and accelerations enabled.

It really seems like an absolute waste of technology not to be able to stand watching videos on sites like Hulu and You Tube for all the chop and stutter. I also get the skip, jump, and stutter problem when I look at .mpeg and .avi files in WinAmp or MediaPlayer. Meanwhile, on my 5 year old XPS 1710 I can watch any web content from anywhere without losing a single frame or hearing one damned stutter. Such an absolute waste. And this is a totally fresh clean installation of Vista 64. I just want to throw this thing on the ground and stomp the crap out of it.

Any more ideas would be appreciated.

 

are you maybe running in stealth mode?

 

You may be experiencing the DPC latency some people are seeing. I for one get similar issues. Games and Bluray will run fine with no skipping. However music, especially from someplace like Pandora pops and skips. Im really hoping the next BIOS revision they are working on resolves it.

 

Hi Wattos,

This is a question worth asking. But, no, I'm not in stealth mode. Unless I'm forced to use the battery, I'm always in full power mode.

If I do play video in stealth mode, however, although the video is much, much, much, MUCH more choppy, the sound is not. The sound is only stuttery when I'm in full power mode.

 

may sound odd but what av do you run. i got rid of kaspersky for doing this exact thing with you tube and other sites. just a though but this is how my system was acting with kaspersky 2010 on it. 2009 was okay for me though

 

Hi zfactor,

I'm using AVG Free. I can certainly try seeing what happens when I remove it. Will report back.

 

I just removed it, rebooted, and tried some of the videos again. Same thing. No change. Is it possible there's something wrong with the integrated sound chips and/or one of the GPUs? Is there any way to test for and isolate such possibilities.

I absolutely hate having this brand new expensive computer that I can't use for the most basic activities of looking at online and downloaded video content. I always go to the 5 year old computer to do that because it's such a horrid experience to look at videos on this brand new M17x.

 

Two days ago my media strip died--no lights and no response to touch. What are the chances that the imminent failure of the media strip (and as of yet other components?) has had something to do with all the skipping and jumping I've endured in videos and music?

Oddly enough, the sound choppiness seems to have gone away since the media strip died, and videos seem a little less choppy than before, though still choppy.

Any thoughts?

 

Media strip came back to life last time I rebooted. But now the sound is snapping and skipping bad as ever. There's no way to make sense of any of this. For instance, if I play this Ecard, send by a friend, I have to listen to popping, snapping, crackling, and skipping sounds all the way through:

http://ecard.ashland.edu/index.php?ecardYear=2004adm

But if I watch it on my 5 year old computer? No snaps, pops, crackles, or skips at all. It's really sad.