Online Streaming Problems

[Mugiwara]

Hi guys,

I was wondering if someone could help me, I have an Acer Aspire 5520 G with Windows 7 64 bit. The problem I am having is that streams online are choppy and don't really play smoothly, whether it's IE8 or Firefox it makes no difference. I don't have this problem playing videos, streams etc that are stored on the hard disc or removeable media.

It's not my internet connection because I've checked that time and again with speed tests giving an average of 8mbps. Another point is I don't have this problem with my lesser spec Dell Inspiron 1501 with Windows XP sp3.

I have all the latest drivers, Adobe's latest Flash, switched hardware accleration on and off yet still no resolution so I'm quite perplexed as to whats going on.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[A Guy]

I would try disabling all addons in IE8 (for this test) and see if any difference. If not, suggest disabling your AV or any active security, momentarily, to see if that fixes the issue. Re-enable as soon as test obviously. Usually choppy video means the browser is not buffering enough to allow the video to play smoothly. You can also download Chrome and/or Opera and see if it is the same with a clean install of either/both. A Guy

 

[Mugiwara]

Thanks for you advice A Guy but with add ons disabled flash doesn't work in IE and enabling / disabling security doesn't make any difference, haven't tried Opera or Chrome but i think it's something to do with Flash because I can buffer the whole of a stream and still playback is choppy and not smooth

 

[A Guy]

What media player do you use to watch this streaming media?

A Guy

 

[Mugiwara]

Sorry about the late reply mate, not had much time.

In answer to your question, I use Media Player and VLC plus I've got Sharky's Codecs installed.

I've been doing a lot of searching trying to resolve my problem and first thing I found is the Laptop itself. The Acer's design means that it gets really hot, which in turn affects it's performance, the mouse pad and keyboard can get really hot and at times the mouse pad can become unusable, so a decent laptop cooler will help with that situation.

The other thing I found through the use of DPC checker and checking the net is that my Laptop had a high DPC latency; as many laptops seem to have, I don't thoroughly understand the problem but apparently a lot of laptops are riddled with DPC problems motherboards are not designed correctly or without audio in mind, errors in hardware or software controlling the hardware, whilst my BOIS could also be a problem.

As DPC advised I went through disabling and enabling some device drivers, I also tried checking some non Microsoft processes. I found that, whilst I could not completely solve the DPC latency problem - there are still some rather high spikes - I was able to bring it down enough to allow far more fluid online video streaming. I have Tune Up Utilities installed and disabling a couple of it's services made a lot of significant difference, usually the DPC checker would give a high spike the moment I started watching something on-line but after turning off the aforementioned services, the spike did not come for a very long while and best of all the stream quality was no longer stuttering. So far so good.

I'm thinking about updating my BOIS to see if it will fully resolve the DPC latency, however I know this can be quite risky, so I'm in two minds. For the moment, everything is working smoothly.

 

[A Guy]

Well, good detective work. I'm with you on the updates. Seems when my friends mess up their PC's, its trying to update BIOS or a driver. People do it every day with no problems, but if you happen to be the ONE who has issues, that's 100% bad for you I will usually only update to fix a major issue, or if some great new usability is involved. A Guy