Computer lag every 2 seconds..

Question for Vigilante:

With my system (if you don't remember, it has problems similar to kryptoknight's), I've noticed that playing video files (.avi, .wmv, etc) causes a lot of lag to happen. It looks as if the audio and video are badly out of synch, but it's actually just my system lagging horribly with the video. This doesn't happen, however, when I play a DVD--they play perfectly. Any ideas? I was thinking about the video card (which the company that built my computer already replaced while it was still under warranty--this video problem wasn't happening back then), but DVD video is still processed by the GPU isn't it? Any ideas you can offer would be appreciated. Thanks.

Atrice

You might read around www.dvdtalk.com. Here are two big questions answered:

Q: What's the difference between software and hardware decoders?
A:With a hardware decoder, the audio/video stream is decoded on a seperate add-on board in your PC. These add-on boards have one or more chips on them that are like mini-CPUs designed specifically for decoding DVD streams. A software decoder relies heavily on the PC's CPU to get the stream decoded into audio and video which the sound card and video card can deal with. There is a thing call Hardware Motion Compensation that is included on some video cards to lower the amount of CPU that is required.

Q: Does my video card offer hardware DVD decoding?
A:I have yet to see a video card that offers full DVD decoding. Some video cards have Hardware Motion Compensation which takes a little bit of the load away from the CPU for the video decoding. Many of the ATI cards have motion compensation as well as the nVidia GeForce.
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As most home users don't have hardware decoder cards, your DVDs are handled mostly by the CPU. And IF you have the motion compensation thing, that helps a little.

But chances are good your codecs are somehow bad or corrupt for those other formats.
Download the program "VideoInspector" from http://www.kcsoftwares.com/index.php?download

It will give you interresting facts about the video files themselves and what they are and what codecs they use and whether you have them etc... It can list all the codecs you have in your system. Might be a good read.

Otherwise, you could try downloading a codec pack like the K-Lite Codec Pack. Browse around http://www.free-codecs.com/Codec_Packs.htm and see all the codec packs there. I almost always load the K-Lite pack, including being able to read Real Player files and Quicktime without having to install those apps. Very handy. Although I think the one including that is called the K-Lite Codec Mega pack. It's harder to find.

Good luck!

Thanks a lot. I'll take a look at those links.

Chip driver update Just a suggestion

Just another suggestion. I just built my gaming computer on Saturday, MSI K8N Neo4 SLI platinum with AMD64 3500 and 1GB OCZ P3200 platinum DDR ram.

After Windows XP Pro installed itself onto the newly formatted WD Raptor 10K rpm SATA drive in ran like **** (insert your own descriptive).

Then I used the enclosed Live Update 3 software from MSI to update the on board LAN driver and nVidia nforce4 chip set drivers. The computer ran like a charm after that!!!! Remember this was just delivered in the box on Friday Aug 26 (then assembled by me) and I had to immediately update the chip set drivers!!

Aslo standard stuff: PS, make sure it has enough power, over heating of CPU??

Chip driver update Just a suggestion

Just another suggestion. I just built my gaming computer on Saturday, MSI K8N Neo4 SLI platinum with AMD64 3500 and 1GB OCZ P3200 platinum DDR ram.

After Windows XP Pro installed itself onto the newly formatted WD Raptor 10K rpm SATA drive in ran like **** (insert your own descriptive).

Then I used the enclosed Live Update 3 software from MSI to update the on board LAN driver and nVidia nforce4 chip set drivers. The computer ran like a charm after that!!!! Remember this was just delivered in the box on Friday Aug 26 (then assembled by me) and I had to immediately update the chip set drivers!!

Aslo standard stuff: PS, make sure it has enough power, over heating of CPU?? Try to turn down your desktop resolution. I took my old computer up staris for the kids to use (it's an ASUS a7A244 mobo with 512mB DDR Ram with AMD A4 CPU and GeForce 5200 video) not bad for some games. Any how on my monitor downstairs it ran fine and was set at 1024X768. Take it up stairs plug it into the 8 yr old monitor there and the mouse would hardly move across the screen! Nothing change just the monitor! Had to turn resolution way down to 800X600 so it would act like a computer again. Weird.

that would explain when I way overclocked my XP 3200+ and burned it out (it was easy to overclock- I got carried away) and downgraded to a XP 2500+ I couldn't overclock at all with the same PC3200 memory.

I just came across this thread after doing a couple searches in google, and I'm relieved to see that at least there is somebody else that is having the exact same problem I am. I still haven't been able to solve it, and I've tried just about everything. I'm using an Intel D865PERL motherboard with AC'97 onboard audio, I have 2 interior HD's and 1 exterior, a 2.4 ghz P4 processor, 1 gb DDR RAM, and an ATI Radeon 9800 All-in-Wonder.

This problem has been relatively recent (within the past month), but I cannot pinpoint any major changes that should've caused it. I've been pretty consistent with my computer usage behavior over the past couple months and I haven't installed any new hardware or significant software upgrades. All spyware and virus scans have been run to no avail. I've since updated all my drivers and scoured the internet for any and all options that could fix this.

At first I kind of just tolerated it, but it's getting quite obnoxious, and I desperately want to get rid of it.

If you have any luck fixing it please clue me in on how you pulled it off. Maybe comparing our situations together might reveal some kind of common factor that could pinpoint what the problem is.

noob! This thread is over 4 months old!!! I don't even remember the topic!!!!

Seeing as, like I mentioned, I found this thread from Google, your comment is pretty irrelevant.

I read through every post in the thread, and the problem was never solved. I don't see how bringing it back could cause any damage at all.

Every forum needs at least one post-nazi though, I suppose.

ringo380: what power is your PSU and how old is it? You've got a fair amount of equipment on this thing, you need about 450W high end PSU with at least 26A on the 12V supply and prob 50A on the 5V supply.

Check your CPU temperature as well. Both low power and CPU overheating are classic faults for laggy, unstable computer.

Cheers.

Think I found a solution

I had this exact same problem , and it seemed to just pop out of nowhere. You should check in device manager>>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers>>Primary IDE Channel and then in Advanced settings and look for the "current transfer mode" (NOTE: most likely it is the primary and not the secondary causing the lag). If the current transfer mode is PIO only then you have the bug. PIO pretty much means that your harddisk data tranfer speed is at 16.6 MB/sec, not what UDMA can do (133mb/sec for instance). To read about the problem and solution go here!

http://users.bigpond.net.au/ninjaduck/itserviceduck/udma_fix/

fixed it in seconds!

Ok, ok, I know that this topic is friggin ancient, but I'll post my experiences here anyway just in case people with the same problem come across it in google. I've had this problem on my friend's laptop that I was fixing. It would freeze up every few seconds no matter what I was doing with it, whether it was moving the mouse or typing something. The most annoying part about typing is that whatever you typed while it was freezing up would not get inputted.

For me, it turned out that the issue was with a dead battery. Sure the laptop was running on A/C power, but when the dead battery was hooked up to the laptop, I would get these freezes. When I took it out and had the laptop only running on the A/C power, it was ok.

Yes, I know that the issue here isn't with a laptop, it's with a PC, but it just shows that the problem may be with the power supply. (This was mentioned earlier in this same thread, but my experience is one that confirms that it can be the issue.)

Help!

I have somewhat the same problem. My computer lags every 3 seconds or so when gaming. I am not sure, but I dont think it is the internet connection because I have another computer that plays the same games online without lag. Can anyone help me?