video skips once every movie

[T2urtle]

I'm watching a .mpeg or .avi file downloaded to my hard-drive.

There is a skip in which everything freezes and i heard like the cpu fan or case fan kick on stronger. The freeze lasts about 5 seconds and then sound is restored and about 8-10 seconds video is restored after it pixelates and everything.


This hasn't happened in the past. When i watch video nothing is playing/running in the background. Video is played on window's media player.

system specs are dell built E510

2.8ghz p4, 3gb of ram, 750gb 7200rpm HD. 8600GT .win7

nothing remote close happen like this to this system, i've owned for about 3-4 years. its been a solid computer. recently upgraded from a 500gb to 750gb western digtal hard-drive, the green one and then installed win7. prior to win 7 i never had any video issues.

anyone have thoughts? I have another computer similiar specs running win7 and everything works great. Its not just one video its any of them. I watch a lot of TV show, on good days i get a skip every 2-4 30min shows. on bad days i get them once every 30 min show. It happens once no matter how long the video is. watched a 3 hour movie the other day it froze within the first 20 mins and never again.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Does the similar system use a WD Green drive? I ask because the Green drives are slower to reduce the amount of power they use making them green drives. This may be contributing to the problem. Could also be a hickup in the RAM.

 

[theevilsharpie]

I've experienced a similar issue when a program running in the background was performing disk operations (e.g., defragmenting, virus scanning) on the video file.

Does the similar system use a WD Green drive? I ask because the Green drives are slower to reduce the amount of power they use making them green drives. This may be contributing to the problem. Could also be a hickup in the RAM.

A slower 5400RPM drive is more than fast enough to stream HD video unless it's horribly fragmented, and even then, it shouldn't have any problems. RAM issues will usually cause the application to crash at best, and a BSOD at worst.

 

[T2urtle]

only my system has the green HD, least i think it was green, might be blue. I wanted a slower more quiet drive, my old drive was a maxtor 7200 and that thing was annoying loud.


the other is on whatever dell puts in their vostro systems, assuming seagate as that's what i pulled out of mines.

i normally disable my virus scan. disk clean/defrag isn't setup to do it on its own. The only things running the background as small non-resource hogging items like the weather/CPU gadgets. my gmail desktop app.


it sounds like a resource app is running in the background. since that is the ONLY time i hear the CPU fan kick on. but i'm not running anything that could cause that much of a stress-er.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sure you're not overheating and thermal-throttling? Download RMClock to check.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Is the processor a HT (hyper threaded) processor or non-HT? In a perfect world 2.8GHz might be good enough, but a single core processor would have a hard time with a video of sufficient quality.

Not to mention you're running on a Windows 7 installation, the processor may not be enough to handle the background tasks, as well as a .mpeg video playing.

Just a thought.

 

[T2urtle]

i'm on a pentium D 2.8ghz, the other system is on a core duo processor. That might be the reason behind it. if this is the case i would just go back to XP Pro.

not sure what its worth but my "windows experience score" is a 4.5 on a scale of 1.0-7.9


will look into RMClock...

 

[Slugbait]

OK, so now we know that you DON'T actually have a "2.8ghz p4", but instead it's a Pentium D dual-core proc. So no, the proc is not the reason behind it.

And you don't know what hard drive you have, either. But if it is Green, an automatic RPM speed adjustment could be the reason.

But you also state that the rotation speeds of a couple of fans also increase. This normally occurs due to a sudden spike in heat, which is usually caused by one or more processes suddenly kicking in. Windows could be doing some background maintenance, or something else you have running is performing a task, and it's pushing your video aside to get started.

So I would start by using msconfig or Autoruns to eliminate any boot processes you don't need. If the issue still occurs, I would then use HijackThis to verify nasties aren't installed on the machine and periodically phoning home.

 

[CoinOperatedBoy]

And you don't know what hard drive you have, either. But if it is Green, an automatic RPM speed adjustment could be the reason.

I thought it was proven that the spindle speed is actually fixed in the Greens, despite claims from WD.

 

[T2urtle]

OK, so now we know that you DON'T actually have a "2.8ghz p4", but instead it's a Pentium D dual-core proc. So no, the proc is not the reason behind it.

And you don't know what hard drive you have, either. But if it is Green, an automatic RPM speed adjustment could be the reason.

But you also state that the rotation speeds of a couple of fans also increase. This normally occurs due to a sudden spike in heat, which is usually caused by one or more processes suddenly kicking in. Windows could be doing some background maintenance, or something else you have running is performing a task, and it's pushing your video aside to get started.

So I would start by using msconfig or Autoruns to eliminate any boot processes you don't need. If the issue still occurs, I would then use HijackThis to verify nasties aren't installed on the machine and periodically phoning home.

sorry it didn't occur to me that p4 and a pentium D would made such a huge difference. As for the HD, i'm pretty confident its a WD green 750gb verison.

I looked at msconfig and there are a whole lot more processes running compared to XP. i have no clue which to disable. is there a simple guide for win7? Under services after hiding all MS services only thing running is logitech, nvivda and AVG stuff.

 

[Slugbait]

I apologize, I shouldn't have said "boot processes", I should have said some variation of "Startup", which are processes that run at boot. In other words, you're looking at the wrong tab: you want the Startup tab.

And yes, the difference between a single-core proc and dual-core is pretty huge.

For more confidence of which drive you have, click Start->Run, and type devmgmt.msc (OK). Then expand the "Disk drives" tree. The exact model number should be there.

 

[Slugbait]

I thought it was proven that the spindle speed is actually fixed in the Greens, despite claims from WD.

Sorry, brain fart on my part. Greens have a "steady" spindle speed, somewhere between 5400 and 7200. WD does not disclose the exact speeds.

 

[T2urtle]

for that case i disable all the pointless start-up files. that hasn't changed from XP much.
as of right now i only have 2 logtiech setpoints, java, AVG and 2 MS windows OS enable for startup.

the 2 logitech bothers me, one under "command" is KHALMNPR.EXE the other is the normal D:/programfile......

WDC WD7500AADS-00L5B1 ATA

so it is a GREEN caviar per this

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=608

my thoughts about the pentium D was that it was one of the first versions of the 2 dual cores and well technology hasn't fully developed. Thats just silly me tho.

I'll be downloading my TV shows on friday and report back if i get any skipping.

 

[Slugbait]

Disable KHALMNPR.EXE. It's a known resource hog. On some machines it can spike the CPU, usually somewhere between 98 to 100%...in turn, this would increase the rotational speed of cooling fans.

I bought my Logitech MX Duo many years ago, and made the mistake of installing their drivers along with it. So every build since then, I skip their drivers, and it works fine. I don't get a few features like remapping, but I don't miss them at all.

You can try uninstalling all of the Logitech drivers, but you'll still have to uncheck KHALMNPR.EXE in Startup. Plus you may end up with all new issues, and if so, you might be better off with a clean Windows install.

 

[T2urtle]

^done, thanks for the help. hopefully all goes well..


I need it because i'm using a MX518 and the default speed/DPI is too fast for me. It has 3 default settings without the driver and with it you can have 5 and adjust it to your speeds. I also have a wireless keyboard thru them and i need it since i use my media buttons more then anything else.

 

[T2urtle]

watched and it happened again. this time i paid a lot more attention. it seems as if this is mainly a hard-drive problem. what i thought was the CPU fan before sounded like it was/is now the hard-drive seeking.

I dont think there is anything i can do about this. Maybe its a result of me using the Green WD or maybe its win7.