Choppy Playback From Windows Media Player

sheilatnt · 22 Mar 2012

When I am playing music in the media player, at first the sound is fine, but after awhile it begins to become choppy. And sometimes when streaming on the internet, the same thing happens but right away. It is not the speakers because the sound will start then stop, over and over. It is not the internet because this happens in media player which does not require the internet to run. I've updated and troubleshooted and nothing seems to help. I have an HP DV 9000, 64 bit, Windows 7 operating system.

fireberd · 23 Mar 2012

First, make sure you are using the HP provided sound driver and not the generic Windows installed "HD Audio Codec". In most cases the vendor, (in this case HP) provided sound driver is needed for proper operation.

Second, does this happen if the Windows Media Player is the only program you have open?

Finally, because Audio is considered a low priority item in Windows it is on a shared IRQ (Interrupt) with some higher priority device, that can cause sound interruptions. Uninstalling the sound in the Device Manager (but not the driver) and then restarting the PC will sometimes put the sound on a different shared IRQ and help to minimize interruptions.