Weird Hiccups

[usspaceforce]

I recently bought a computer my friend built himself, and it runs beautifully with one exception. Whenever I'm watching a video or listening to an audio file, it randomly gets hung up, kind of like a millisecond skip that repeats for a second or three. This happens with any program I use, including itunes, winamp, WMP, VLC, Firefox, IE, Google Chrome and every other program that plays audio/visual, whether it's streaming or playing off the internal or external hard drives. The first thing I checked was whether the computer is being bogged down, but even with itunes the usage maxes out at around 2-3 percent. Sometimes it will run for long periods of time without any problems, and other times it happens so often as to be unbearable. My friend, who is not a computer expert but knows more than I do, has tried a lot of different little things to fix this. We've done everything from checking the drivers to installing the k lite codecs, and even some seemingly unrelated stuff like changing the monitor refresh rate (as was suggested as a response to a similar post on another board). Nothing has helped and I'm ready to pull my hair out. Any suggestions?

 

[warmon6]

well we need system specs to get a better understanding the situation.

with out this info i can guess 1 things at them moment..

my guess and probley what causing the it is the hdd is being boggled down. (the main bottleneck in a computer.) If your computer is asking for multiple stuff at once (like say anti virus running in the background while your doing else) it will overwork the hdd.

Solutions:

1. Turn off all backgrounds apps. (simple)

2. setting up a raid to increase reading times (like raid 1 or 0). (complex)

3. reinstalling windows. (simple (sometimes complex) and time consuming)

4. Add more ram. (simple but may not solve your problem.)

Until we those system specs, i dont think there much more we can help you.

 

[usspaceforce]

Here are the system specs from My Computer properties:
Windows XP Professional version 2002 service pack 3
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+
2.51 GHz, 3.00 GB of RAM

The fellow who sold me the computer said he installed an extra fan or two in it as well. The soundcard I'm using is the regular one coming off of the motherboard. The guy who sold me the computer gave me an Emu soundcard, thinking that may solve the problem. I haven't installed it yet, though, because it doesn't have the regular 1/8 inch jacks, but it has every other possible connection. I haven't had the time to figure out a way around this yet, aside from some adapters. Is there any other information that would be helpful? Thank you very much for the previous suggestions.

 

[maddoxman]

And this only happens when Video/Audio is playing?

What Kind of Hard Drive does the system have?
And do you have any kind of real-time Antivirus/Antispyware running?

 

[JofaMang]

I used to get that problem once in a while, and usually uninstalling all the codecs, restarting, then reinstalling a package like K-lite solved my issues. I had a 4800+ with 2gb of ram, x1600pro videocard, with a 250gb hdd at the time (has only happened once since I built this computer) and I would have to do it once a month. I don't know if it was a symptom of another problem, or the source, but it worked in fixing the skipping.

 

[usspaceforce]

That's the only time I notice it. The internal hard drive is listed as st332062 0AS SCSI, which is 300 GB. I have another hard drive in a case running through the USB, but the hiccups happen whether it's turned on or not. I'm running AVG Free for antivirus.

 

[usspaceforce]

Both audio and video. There is a video card. It's a Radeon X1550 series.

 

[JofaMang]

That is pretty close in spec to my last computer, and an identical issue that I had. I strongly suggest trying the codec route before you get your head too deep into diagnosing hardware issues.

I never used a dedicated sound card on that computer, and after codec installation it would run every video I could throw at it (including HD .mkvs).