media player messing up

I have a PIII 600MHz system with 768 meg of ram. If I open a few programs with media player I usually have no problem. But if I open one to many programs with media player running, it starts to not work right. It will basically stop playing, but make a sound every 20 seconds or so for less than a tenth a second or so, like a glitch type deal. what could cause something like this?

Using all your RAM and starting to page to the hard disk. Does the hard disk light up at the same time?

Try closing anything you don't need.

I dont know if the HDD light turns on because I have an Xblade case, and the prongs dont fit my mobo right. I highly doubt that I am using all my ram. I have taken every thing that I dont need off of startup. I can run just these, MSN Messenger, Firefox, solitaire, and be fine, but if I run another program, it will usually start failing. Task manager says PF Usage is about 276 - 322 MB. I can close all other programs, and it still wont work. It actually wont play any sound, so its not just media player. Could it possibly be sound card drivers? Its an Aureal Vortex 8810 audio card, and XP has its own drivers for it.

Edit: Sometimes the HDD will also freeze for about 5 - 10 seconds too.

A few things you can do:
1. Check your paging file, make sure it is set to 'System Managed', this is the most effective setting if you have a decent sized HD.
2. Turn off & disable System Restore Service. It uses a high amount of your CPU and memory and is basically useless unless you create a restore point every 2 seconds.
3. Turn off & disable the Messenger Service. Again, useless, it tries to transmit info between computers, and makes you open to receive trojans etc.
4. If you have no printer, turn off & disable the Print Spooling Service, it eats up your CPU and Memory also, there's a bug with this service that Microsoft tries to address with an update (KB896423 (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=49&p=1&SrcDisplayLang=en&SrcCategoryId=&SrcFamilyId=EF402946-1C3B-47E9-9D51-77D890DF8725&u=http%3a%2f%2fsupport.microsoft.com%2f%3fkbid%3d8 96423)), but the update failes to completely fix the memory leaking problem.
5. Turn off and disable the Windows Themes service, once again eats up entirely too much memory.
6. A few other services that can be disabled that are rendered useless: Remote Registry, Secondary Logon<-(if you're the only user on the computer), and Security Center (given that you know enough to have anti-virus, firewall, and whatever about the auto-updates).

How do I do all those?

Edit: 120 gig HDD, no printers, I use msn messenger - a lot, this PC is pretty well maxed out.
spooling is allready disabled.

When you have all the programs open and videos run slowly and you open Task Manager, what does it say in Commit Charge?

How fast is your RAM? I would guess fairly slow by the age of the machine.

I still think it's the page file. Why not disable it to test? If you get any errors about being out of memory when you open the videos, then it is the page file.

It's not your sound drivers.

Its for songs that I am wanting to play, not movies. I played a clip and movies run fine, but with out sound. I can close everything else and still get nothing. It also happens with vids and songs online, leading me to think that it isn't media player. It is all sounds.

Commit Charge (K)
Total 336472 ------changes a lot
Limit 1923324
Peak 425920


How do I disable the Page File?

Edit: RAM is pc 100 or pc 133 mhz, not completly sure.

Are those figures you posted when it was having the problem with playback?

Right as this moment I cannot play any sounds. I dont have Media Player opened though.

With Media Player opened:
Commit Charge (K)
Total 377960 --changes
Limit 1923324
Peak 425920

How do I diasble the page file?

What do you mean you can't play any sounds, and you don't have media player open?

Is your computer exhibiting the same behaviour as in your first post, or not?

Are you sound drivers installed and working correctly in other applications, and in Windows itself?

Every thing is the same as the first post, just that i forgot that i cant play anything online, any songs on sites, etc. No sound what so ever. I can turn th PC on and it all plays normally, but when I open to many programs, the sound just stops playing completly. No media player, nothing online, no sound period. it has worked fine for the past 6 months on this setup. I added a stick of ram about 6 months ago, to 3 256mb sticks of pc 100 or pc 133 ram, all are the same. I disabled the page file and it seems to run a lot slower now than it did before. I have minimized the startup prorams to just windows live messenger, and a program for my video card (radeon 9250 128mb vid.) its a driver/bios updater I think. I just restarted my PC, and I have firefox, windows live (MSN), and windows media player open. I was just getting sound, until I just opened limewire. Then it cuts out, and i hear a very short sound, a glith as you might call it, every once in a while.

Edit: Page file didn't get disabled for some reason.

Next time the sound cuts out like that, post what your CPU usage is like from task manager.

I opened Limewire, cpu spike to 100% the whole time it takes to open it. After it is done loadingit goes back down to ten and moves around from tenish to 30ish.

I was watching the CPU usage earlier, and I had noticed that it spikes every once in a while for no apparent reason.

Run Defrag on your hard drive(s) where your media is stored. Also run CHKDSK with the /f switch to fix any errors it may find.

check here for some ideas...
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925703/en-us

I'll do a defrag later tonite when I get home. To run chkdsk/f i run that in command prompt? I dont think it is media player. I say this because it happens with ALL SOUNDS, not just music in media player, its also online, messeges, etc. So if I got to a webpage that has a song that plays in the back ground, I hear absalutly nothing. If I play a game that has sound, I hear abslutly nothing. This only happens when I open too many programs, and always happens every time I open Limewire. This makes me believe that it may be something other than Media player.

I think that whatever "maintenance" type things you run on your PC, it's going to have the same problem - your system isn't powerful enough to run all the applications you want to run simultaneously.

The CPU jump could be caused by any of the many un-needed services that you are running, simply hit Start->run->type services.msc and it will bring up all the running services, right click the service you want to edit, click properties, click stop, and in the dropdown menu, make sure to disable that ones you would like disabled to keep them from starting. I multitask on a 700MHZ comp with 256MB of RAM with XP. Bugger, PM me or MSN: [email protected] if you have any questions.

I think that whatever "maintenance" type things you run on your PC, it's going to have the same problem - your system isn't powerful enough to run all the applications you want to run simultaneously.

Yup, I was thinking it was only the music you have on your pc that was a problem - but if it's all sounds (including the windows dings and beeps when you close applications and visit websites) then it's probably a system problem. But defrag couldn't hurt - if your system is old your hard drive might not have enough contiguous space to make a decent page file. Run it and also chkdsk /f when you have time...they can take a long time to complete.

You can also try messing with the video acceleration and buffering settings. In Media Player go to Tools / Options, then click the "Performance" tab. Play around with some of the settings in that window. It probably won't fix your problem but it may improve things a bit.

Did this problem just start happening? You used to be able to run several apps and Media Player before with no problem?

For maintenance, I have adaware and spybot. I need to get an AV still, I have downloaded AVG, but havent installed it yet. I will run chkdsk and defrag tonight when I am sleeping cause it usually takes about an hour and a half for each. As for when this problem started, it was about a week or two ago. I did a fresh install of xp about a month and a half to two months ago. I had no problem running Media player, firefox, IE, solitaire, limewire, and msn at the same time. Sometimes got a bit slow, but everything worked fine.

I think I am gonna try a different card. I can get a sound blaster pro for free from school, and will try that. I think the aureal is just bad.

This only happens when I open too many programs

am i the only one who can see the obvious solution here?

am i the only one who can see the obvious solution here?

But the problem just started happening recently - he used to be able to open several programs at once with no problem. Probably spyware or some remnants of a virus.

I don't think a new sound card would make the difference but since it's free it's worth a shot. But before you buy any new hardware I'd suggest re-installing the OS.

I don't think a new sound card would make the difference but since it's free it's worth a shot. But before you buy any new hardware I'd suggest re-installing the OS.I have been thinking about doing that too, and getting the AV and antispyware installed first.

am i the only one who can see the obvious solution here?
No.

I'll do a defrag later tonite when I get home. To run chkdsk/f i run that in command prompt? I dont think it is media player. I say this because it happens with ALL SOUNDS, not just music in media player, its also online, messeges, etc. So if I got to a webpage that has a song that plays in the back ground, I hear absalutly nothing. If I play a game that has sound, I hear abslutly nothing. This only happens when I open too many programs, and always happens every time I open Limewire. This makes me believe that it may be something other than Media player.
get rid of limewire if you love your computer.:wink:

I defraged the HDD, no luck, and it is a 120 GB drive, so it has enough contiguous space. I think Gohan is the only one who sees my point with it just starting recently because I used to be able to run MP with 5 or more programs, I know it isnt RAM, or HDD space. I am now thinking maybe virus or spyware too. So I am just going to back up, reinstall, use AV to scan other drive and go from there.

get rid of limewire if you love your computer.:wink:Limewire doesnt have any spyware, I have done research into this. Its just that some of the files that you might download may contain a virus or spyware. Bearshare Pro is the same way, but the basic version of bearshare has spyware in it, as the same with a few other programs. You can also find cracked versions of limewire pro too.

Limewire doesnt have any spyware, I have done research into this. Its just that some of the files that you might download may contain a virus or spyware. Bearshare Pro is the same way, but the basic version of bearshare has spyware in it, as the same with a few other programs. You can also find cracked versions of limewire pro too.
okay, fine. But the only times i've ever dealt with viruses on any computer i've owned came from limewire. Too risky if you ask me. I just use itunes and buy my music (like everyone should.):wink:

okay, fine. But the only times i've ever dealt with viruses on any computer i've owned came from limewire. Too risky if you ask me. I just switched to itunes and buy my music (like everyone should.):wink: Yea, probly, I don't use it enought to say I do though.

Ran chkdsk /f, gotta say that took 5 minutes, the fastest I have ever seen check disk run. No luck.

And for the verdict....Bad sound card. Seems to run fine, even when I purposly tried to get it to happen again which wasnt hard to do with the old card. Ran limewire along with a few other programs and it satays working.

:thumbsup: Thank God for school freebies.

Yeah, school freebies rule.