Windows 7: Video freeze on playback, sound skipping and cracking

It took me 2 weeks to deal with this problem. Nowhere on this forum or anywhere else it was indicated directly that the source is where I'm about to tell you.

Getting to the point - video playback freezing whole system may be caused by:
- graphic drivers (not in my case, U can always check if it helps in yours)
- high performance power profile (from this forum's tutorials: Power Plan - Select | Power Plan Settings - Change)
- installing different codecs/vid player
- PCI-E x1 bug <- a real pain in the ass, caused most of the problems; I’ll explain how to solve it in a minute
- Comodo Firewall/Internet Security for x64 systems (for some users disabling the Image Execution and unticking Detect Shellcode injections worked) - still a not resolved bug LINK 1 LINK2
- interrupt conflict with other hardware (try to disable in BIOS setup your WiFi adapter / COM port – this helped a couple of people)

Skipping and shuttering sound on all my sources (Audigy (with kx v.3550 drivers) and AD SoundMax integrated with MB) was also caused by the PCI-E bug, which was a real surprise for me, especially in the case of Audigy which is an old PCI card.

PCI-E x1 bug mainly affects overclockers, but not in all situations. To check the PCI Express operating mode use GPU-Z

A bunch of solutions depending on your MB/ GPU:
- disable "PEG Force X1"
- set the NB Vcore to 1.4 or more
- set the PCIE Bus Frequency from 100 to 115 MHz
More on this topic
- Tech ARP - How To Fix The PCI Express x1 Bug Rev. 3.1
- How To Fix The PCI Express x1 Bug - Page 8 - Tech ARP Forums
- Geforce/Forceware causing Audio Stutters and high DPC Latency - NVIDIA Forums

But what really gave me a full bug-free system was uninstalling Comodo Internet Security. For now I'm using PC Tools Firewall Plus, but due to the lack of good HIPS, I need to find something else or an updated version of Comodo IS.

Hope this helps a bunch of people and save you some time.
Oh, by the way the solution I posted in this topic: My audio is skipping, and cracking really bad. worked for me only temporarily.



EDIT: I'm not sure if this is the right section for this thread