Avi Playback issue - stutter and skips and lag

Hi,

I never had a problem playing back avi's that I have torrented before, but lately they all skip, stutter, or lag.

I am running XPproSP2 fully updated.

I am having the same problem with WMP, DIVX Player, and VLC media player. All of them.

I have updated all the codecs to what I believe are the most current, did them about a week ago.

I used to be able to play these avi's of tv shows without a hitch, but now its like they are recorded on old vinyl records with all the skipping. LOL!

I am playing them off my hard drive, through my BFG 6600gtoc, into my DiamondPro monitor. The video card has one of the most recent drivers, again, updated last week.

Any ideas on what is the issue? I have tried all sorts of suggestions I received on other boards - update codecs, use a different player, update video card drivers, etc etc but have got nowhere.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Mark

edit: thought I should mention, antivirus up to date and run, no spyware, hd defragged, all less than 7 days ago.

 

What is your CPU usage during playback?

 

Hi,

Thanks for responding.

My processor usage ranges from 19% to about 50% running DIVX player.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, Mark

 

Hi, i m having the exact same problem. Tried playing them from both my dvd drive and from my harddrive, everything seems to skip/lag every 10 or so minutes. When the video lags, the sound repeats itself, and it lasts for a second or 2. Doesn't happen too often but it bugs me. Aside from avi files, burnt dvds also skips.

 

I would like to add that playback from dvd stutters alot more often than playback from my harddrive and that the lagging is completely random. It would stutter and then if i rewind to that spot again, it might or might not stutter.

Thank you, any help would be greatly appreciated

 

mark9977


Believe it or not something as silly as a fragmented hard drive can cause skipping when playing back AVI's. When was the last time that you defragged it? Also if your hard drive is nearly filled to capacity it too can cause skipping, especially if the drive is fraggmented.


Then there's the possibility that the AVI is flawed.

 

Hi Soph,

The drive is about 2% fragmented, and I defrag approx every 2-3 weeks.

The drive is about 50% full, no more than that.

It is also every avi file that does this, not justone, but about 30. My wife has a ton of shows to watch but they are unwatchable with the current playback issues.

Any other possibilities?

Cheers, Mark

 

Check your hard drive to see that it is set to DMA and not PIO.

 

Hi Soph,

Ok, checked that too, all are set to use DMA.

Most say Ultra DMA mode 2, and one says Multi-Word DMA mode 2.

So, what is the next avenue of investigation you suggest?

Cheers, Mark