Stuttering and Buffering on my WD Passport

[Dave3000]

I've been getting stuttering when playing my MKV files in Kodi and MPC-HC. Also today I've been getting slow motion/no audio and then buffering messages while playing a movie in Kodi at around the 45-minute mark and when I replay the same part the buffering is gone but about 10 seconds after that part the slow motion/no audio then buffering message problem happens again. I tested out my blu-ray disc I ripped from and that part of the movie plays fine on the disc. I also checked the fragmentation of my WD Passport and it's 66% fragmented. I also have my Steam\Origin game backups on it. I tried Openelec from a USB flash drive and still I get the occasional stutter when playing an MKV file off my WD Passport. So I ruled out an OS issue. Can the cause of that my hard drive is too fragmented? Or something wrong with my WD Passport?

 

[corkyg]

How do you have it connected? Are you using a "Y" connector for added USB power?

 

[Dave3000]

I had it connected with the USB cable that came with it through one of the top USB 2.0 ports on my case. I'm not using a Y-cable. I'm running the WD Diagnostics Extended Test to check for bad sectors right now.

I did copy the MKV file to my SSD from my WD Passport and tested it from there and it did not have buffering issues on my SSD. While I copied it to my SSD, at about the 30% mark, the transfer rate dropped from 40 MB/s to 0.71-2.1 MB/s for a few minutes and then went back up to 40 MB/s for the rest of the transfer process.

 

[corkyg]

OK - I asked because my Passport has a "Y" cable that allows it to connect to 2 USB ports in order to guarantee a good, steady supply of power. The problem definitely can be the Passport drive, but it could also be power fluctuation. Can you try it in a powered hub or different USB port?

 

[coercitiv]

While I copied it to my SSD, at about the 30% mark, the transfer rate dropped from 40 MB/s to 0.71-2.1 MB/s for a few minutes and then went back up to 40 MB/s for the rest of the transfer process.

1. Check disk for errors. (skip this if you have a backup or data is not that important)
2. Make sure you have at least 20% free space on your drive, make room if necessary, then run defrag on it. (Windows one should be fine, and the more free space you have, the better)

 

[Dave3000]

I tried a USB Y-cable and on a different USB port and still buffering problems in the same spots in the movie. I also check for bad sectors using a utility from the manufacturer and it passed the test. I'm right now freeing up disk space by transferring everything except the movies from this hard drive to a spare USB hard drive that I had lying around.

 

[tweakboy]

Could be motherboard.