Audio (and video) lag/chopping when something downloads.

Hey guys,
a few weeks ago I had to reinstall Windows 7 completely because I broke my old setup by accident. After I reinstalled it and got the audio drivers to work (got them from the MSI website, my motherboard is MSI P7N SLI Platinum), for some reason, anytime something downloads, the audio stutters.

I have 4GB RAM (Although on idle it's more or less 50% used but I do have a lot of programs running, but I always have). Here's what happens: For instance, I'm playing a youtube video. Until it finishes buffering to the end, it will lag and be choppy. It's mostly evident in the audio but I can see it in the video as well. On other websites that carry slightly heavier and less compressed video, such as GameTrailers, watching videos is a nightmare in the beginning until it presumably loads (they don't have a buffer bar sadly but I'll just assume it downloads).

Later on I also noticed this that literally whenever something downloads, seemingly the rest of my computer slows down. While it's technically fine when I just use it, when I play a game and Steam (the digital game vendor by Valve if someone is unaware) starts downloading/updating something, whatever it is I'm playing starts to lag terribly. Note that the games I've noticed this in were also running from Steam, I hadn't really tested others. I'm kind of used to it now and just wait the lag out until Steam finishes updating.

It's really frustrating. Downloading files isn't supposed to do this to computers as far as I know. But for some reason it places such a load on my computer that everything else stutters. Maybe I can change the priority of downloads or something, I read something about IRQ here (no idea what that is really), but if there's some way I can fix this then please let me know. Thanks.

MSI P7N Sli Platinum
Q9550 2.83 GHz
4GB DDR2 RAM
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
Radeon HD 6870 Dual Screen setup

Could you post a snip of your resource monitor on the overview page with CPU, Memory, and Network tabs expanded while downloading something like a youtube video? :)

Avast seems to quite busy, using up 9 percent of the network utilization.
It's probably the culprit.

It's resident scanner is always scanning files.
The more stuff you have open, the more stuff it has to scan.
I suspect the video lag you're experiencing is because your files are being scanned as you watch them.

I'm going to have to agree with that, since neither your memory nor your CPU are being taxed very much, though 65% seems high for a core 2 quad at almost 3 ghz. Especially since your CPU is running at maximum frequency. Are you overclocked at all?

Try removing Avast and replacing it with MSE and see if the problem persists :)

LiquidSnak said:

Try removing Avast and replacing it with MSE and see if the problem persists :)

+1.

Alright, I'll try it. I hope I can remove avast at all because it tends to manifest itself in your machine and not go away even if you want it to lol. I'll let you guys know what happens.

Edit: Holy crap, I think it actually worked. In fact my whole internet browsing feels faster now.
It still stutters a little in the beginning when loading the video on GT (but not much, it's livable), and sometimes doesn't stutter at all (I guess it might depend on however my comp is running at the moment) and later on the video it smoothes out completely.

Thanks guys!

If you can post another screenshot while downloading, there might be another culprit working

Awesome, I am glad to hear it.