Daniel Burkus
Posts: 170 +8
Hi. I am not sure which forum I should post this in -- I tried Windows Forum, but after a week nobody has answered, so I will try Software.
I am having a problem with my PC when trying to play video files (primarily), and am hoping that you can help me resolve this issue. My PC is running Windows 7 Ultimate. If there are any other PC details that you need, please tell me.
Two weeks ago (12/10) my PC started acting strangely when I try to play video files. In some instances there is no sound at all, or the sound is garbled, but most often it is the human voices in the soundtrack that are muted to the point of being inaudible (background music, however, is usually unaffected, which suggests to me that the modification might be related to the "karaoke function" in NVIDIA); yet some files play normally. The logical thing would of course be to look at the NVIDIA control panel and see if somehow karaoke mode has been turned on (I have never used this feature, but from what I have read on line NVIDIA has the ability to mute human voices while leaving the rest alone), but the control panel is inaccessible (it will not open; and I get an error message that shuts the control panel down if I try to open it). Removing the driver and letting Windows download a replacement did nothing to help.
The issue, as I said, is limited to certain video files (while others play without any problems, and a small number have no sound at all or sound that is badly garbled). This is true regardless of which (of several) players I have tried (and I tried deleting the players and reinstalling them, but that did nothing). The vast majority of my Mp3 files play just fine (in WinAMP), so whatever it is appears to be targeting video media. Also, while some CDs that I have burned myself work perfectly, others do not (the same sound issue); and the commercially produced DVD discs that I have (not many, so I do not know if it is a general rule or not) do not seem to be able to play at all. Likewise, streaming video presents in the same way -- some have sound, some have none or garbled, but the majority have the voice muted while the background music is unaffected. Therefore it seems not to be something that corrupts the actual files (CDs and DVDs are burned onto discs), but rather interferes with the data between the files and the speakers.
My first thought was that it might be a malware issue, and so I posted in the Malware Forum first. But Broni assures me that my machine is clean, and he suggested that I try one of the help forums. It seems it could be a hardware issue (video card is going bad), or a software issue (some sort of corruption in the NVIDIA drivers, for example).
There is no logic to the sound problems: the distortion seems to follow no fixed pattern, some files play normally for a while, then suddenly they do not play in parts, with varying degrees of loss of certain parts of the audio-track (though it seems the parts that play and the parts that do not remain the same every time the file is played); and in a couple of instances, the video does not play too (what shows up are a series of "stills"). Since whatever it is appears to be blocking access to the NVIDIA control panel, I suspect that the problem might lie there.
Thank you very much for your time, and for anything that you can do to help.
-- Daniel M. Burkus
I am having a problem with my PC when trying to play video files (primarily), and am hoping that you can help me resolve this issue. My PC is running Windows 7 Ultimate. If there are any other PC details that you need, please tell me.
Two weeks ago (12/10) my PC started acting strangely when I try to play video files. In some instances there is no sound at all, or the sound is garbled, but most often it is the human voices in the soundtrack that are muted to the point of being inaudible (background music, however, is usually unaffected, which suggests to me that the modification might be related to the "karaoke function" in NVIDIA); yet some files play normally. The logical thing would of course be to look at the NVIDIA control panel and see if somehow karaoke mode has been turned on (I have never used this feature, but from what I have read on line NVIDIA has the ability to mute human voices while leaving the rest alone), but the control panel is inaccessible (it will not open; and I get an error message that shuts the control panel down if I try to open it). Removing the driver and letting Windows download a replacement did nothing to help.
The issue, as I said, is limited to certain video files (while others play without any problems, and a small number have no sound at all or sound that is badly garbled). This is true regardless of which (of several) players I have tried (and I tried deleting the players and reinstalling them, but that did nothing). The vast majority of my Mp3 files play just fine (in WinAMP), so whatever it is appears to be targeting video media. Also, while some CDs that I have burned myself work perfectly, others do not (the same sound issue); and the commercially produced DVD discs that I have (not many, so I do not know if it is a general rule or not) do not seem to be able to play at all. Likewise, streaming video presents in the same way -- some have sound, some have none or garbled, but the majority have the voice muted while the background music is unaffected. Therefore it seems not to be something that corrupts the actual files (CDs and DVDs are burned onto discs), but rather interferes with the data between the files and the speakers.
My first thought was that it might be a malware issue, and so I posted in the Malware Forum first. But Broni assures me that my machine is clean, and he suggested that I try one of the help forums. It seems it could be a hardware issue (video card is going bad), or a software issue (some sort of corruption in the NVIDIA drivers, for example).
There is no logic to the sound problems: the distortion seems to follow no fixed pattern, some files play normally for a while, then suddenly they do not play in parts, with varying degrees of loss of certain parts of the audio-track (though it seems the parts that play and the parts that do not remain the same every time the file is played); and in a couple of instances, the video does not play too (what shows up are a series of "stills"). Since whatever it is appears to be blocking access to the NVIDIA control panel, I suspect that the problem might lie there.
Thank you very much for your time, and for anything that you can do to help.
-- Daniel M. Burkus
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