Videos hogging CPU?

I'm using a Lenovo Ideapad Y550 with the following specs:

32 bit Win 7 Home premium
Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 2.2 ghz
4gb Ram
NVidia GeForce GT 240M video card

When I play videos, every 20-30 seconds the videos freeze for a second or two. The audio keeps going fine. I started Task Manager and watched the performance, and when this happens the CPU maxes out to 100%. In between these spikes the CPU usually stays between 20-40%. This happens even when the video is playing in a window (not full screen).

Any suggestions on where to start? I already fixed the setting to cure the video freezes during full screen mode, so this is a different problem than that common one.

EDIT: I just experimented and watched the CPU usage with the video off, and there are still spikes every several several seconds. The spikes don't hit 100%, but they go up to around 80-90%, up from 5-10% between the spikes. So apparently its not just a video issue. The spikes are so quick that I can't see them show up on the CPU usage under Processes.

Jim

I forgot about the snipping tool in Win7. Here is a shot while watching a Netflix video.



Jim

nhdiesel said:

I'm using a Lenovo Ideapad Y550 with the following specs:

32 bit Win 7 Home premium
Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 2.2 ghz
4gb Ram
NVidia GeForce GT 240M video card

When I play videos, every 20-30 seconds the videos freeze for a second or two. The audio keeps going fine. I started Task Manager and watched the performance, and when this happens the CPU maxes out to 100%. In between these spikes the CPU usually stays between 20-40%. This happens even when the video is playing in a window (not full screen).

Any suggestions on where to start? I already fixed the setting to cure the video freezes during full screen mode, so this is a different problem than that common one.

EDIT: I just experimented and watched the CPU usage with the video off, and there are still spikes every several several seconds. The spikes don't hit 100%, but they go up to around 80-90%, up from 5-10% between the spikes. So apparently its not just a video issue. The spikes are so quick that I can't see them show up on the CPU usage under Processes.

Jim

Did you install any codec packs?

Thanks to all who responded. It appears the culprit was a Firefox add-on called "move media player 7" Yes, that's typed exactly as the name appears. I don't know where this came from, as I don't recall installing it. It may have come packaged with something. Its disabled for now and videos are playing smoothly. I'll continue to experiment and make sure, but i have run a couple hours worth of Netflix TV episodes without any problems.

Jim

Hey!
I also have bad lagging issue, very recently.
I watch videos fullscreen with VLC player, every now and then image stops for 2-3 secs, but audio keeps on going.
Same with streaming with chrome, and with Firefox (even though FireFox is less 'intense').
My video card is HD5770 with a quad-core 2.6Ghz.
Any ideas?

p.s. I ran the DPC latency checker and had a couple of red bars. (like 5 at beggining and 5 later on.)