I have a laptop with the following stats:
XP Home Sp2
Intel Pentium M 2.0GHz Processor (755 Chipset I Think)
OnBoard Realtek AC'97 Audio (Disabled)
SoundBlaster Live! 24-Bit External Sound Card
128mb ATI M11 Radeon 9700 Graphics Card
1GB of DDR PC2700 RAM
100GB HDD (5400rpm), 42% Free
The laptop worked like a dream when I got it in October, a few weeks ago I noticed the audio playback was getting a bit jerky, like when my old desktop can't cope with many tasks. This was doing it in mid-play however and on WMP. It wasn't so bad as to make me think about looking into it then though. However about a month ago I wanted to produce an audio track with Acid Pro (which previously ran smoothly) and I realised that when running any two sounds together it wouldnt do it without contantly cutting in and out providing this jerky, choppy playback. Also recording with a microphone was hopeless and recording anything at all left big skips where what i nthought was the hardware was skipping out.
As I couldnt remember doing anything specific that may have triggered it, mainly as i didnt think about it when it first started, I tried the following things I found that worked/suggested for similar errors with no success, (or seemingly an imporvement until it happens again):
* Scanned for viruses with up-to-date McAfee AND Norton
* Scanned for spyware with Spybot AND Adaware
* Fixed all registry errors found with Registry Mechanic
* Removed the USB TV Stick I thought may be conflicting
* Uninstalled and reinstalled and/or updated Realtek drivers
* Disabled Devices on Device Manager that I am not using (e.g. onboard modem)
* Tried reducing the graphics card hardware acceleration to no difference, so i changed it back
* Removed my USB wireless Mouse which may have coincided with start
* Did a full defrag of the HDD
Follwing a suggestion someone else was given, but also because my card wasnt quality enough for what i would have liked anyway, I purchased an external soundcard (as detailed above) but the problem persisted. I do not see this as a waste because I now can use external speakers (stupid laptop has a headphones out buit its on the front and awkward to keep hooking it up) and better yet its all conencted via USB so it leave other things free. What was even more annoying is that even the windows startup sound is crackly. I have also found stuff on SoundBlasters help that are presumably things to change in the BIOS and stuff rekating to upgrading the BIOS as a certain factor that is in the bios is reuired to support some drivers but I havent looked too far into that as it seems like I am clutching at straws.
In addition to this, I upgraded my Video Drivers to Omega Drivers. This was after the nproblem has started and was so I could play The Sims 2 without Graphical Error, as far as I know playing The Sims, (which I havent done for a couple of weeks but was while the probelm was ongoing) plays perfectly without constant sound glitch, however other games I play and things like AOL sounds have started displaying the playback glitching symptoms.
For a little more background, my RAM never goes below 650MB (after instaling McAfee anyway, it was never under 700MB when I had the useless Norton Ati-virus) but a constant hogger of RAM is svhost, which i understand runs many important things. I'm pretty sure it never used to be the thing using the most resources however. Now its without fail the most memory using thing. I did notice that soemtimes the system CPU Usage is quite high espeically when opening programs when its around 90%, this seems wrong especially for what I understand are decent hardware.
In case anyone requests one, as im hoping the answer lies within this, here is my report from HiJackThis:
As I said it used to work like a dream, there arent any hardware conflicts that the computer can find, it happens on either sound card I use and it's not a sound card driver update issue.
Thanks in advance!!!
XP Home Sp2
Intel Pentium M 2.0GHz Processor (755 Chipset I Think)
OnBoard Realtek AC'97 Audio (Disabled)
SoundBlaster Live! 24-Bit External Sound Card
128mb ATI M11 Radeon 9700 Graphics Card
1GB of DDR PC2700 RAM
100GB HDD (5400rpm), 42% Free
The laptop worked like a dream when I got it in October, a few weeks ago I noticed the audio playback was getting a bit jerky, like when my old desktop can't cope with many tasks. This was doing it in mid-play however and on WMP. It wasn't so bad as to make me think about looking into it then though. However about a month ago I wanted to produce an audio track with Acid Pro (which previously ran smoothly) and I realised that when running any two sounds together it wouldnt do it without contantly cutting in and out providing this jerky, choppy playback. Also recording with a microphone was hopeless and recording anything at all left big skips where what i nthought was the hardware was skipping out.
As I couldnt remember doing anything specific that may have triggered it, mainly as i didnt think about it when it first started, I tried the following things I found that worked/suggested for similar errors with no success, (or seemingly an imporvement until it happens again):
* Scanned for viruses with up-to-date McAfee AND Norton
* Scanned for spyware with Spybot AND Adaware
* Fixed all registry errors found with Registry Mechanic
* Removed the USB TV Stick I thought may be conflicting
* Uninstalled and reinstalled and/or updated Realtek drivers
* Disabled Devices on Device Manager that I am not using (e.g. onboard modem)
* Tried reducing the graphics card hardware acceleration to no difference, so i changed it back
* Removed my USB wireless Mouse which may have coincided with start
* Did a full defrag of the HDD
Follwing a suggestion someone else was given, but also because my card wasnt quality enough for what i would have liked anyway, I purchased an external soundcard (as detailed above) but the problem persisted. I do not see this as a waste because I now can use external speakers (stupid laptop has a headphones out buit its on the front and awkward to keep hooking it up) and better yet its all conencted via USB so it leave other things free. What was even more annoying is that even the windows startup sound is crackly. I have also found stuff on SoundBlasters help that are presumably things to change in the BIOS and stuff rekating to upgrading the BIOS as a certain factor that is in the bios is reuired to support some drivers but I havent looked too far into that as it seems like I am clutching at straws.
In addition to this, I upgraded my Video Drivers to Omega Drivers. This was after the nproblem has started and was so I could play The Sims 2 without Graphical Error, as far as I know playing The Sims, (which I havent done for a couple of weeks but was while the probelm was ongoing) plays perfectly without constant sound glitch, however other games I play and things like AOL sounds have started displaying the playback glitching symptoms.
For a little more background, my RAM never goes below 650MB (after instaling McAfee anyway, it was never under 700MB when I had the useless Norton Ati-virus) but a constant hogger of RAM is svhost, which i understand runs many important things. I'm pretty sure it never used to be the thing using the most resources however. Now its without fail the most memory using thing. I did notice that soemtimes the system CPU Usage is quite high espeically when opening programs when its around 90%, this seems wrong especially for what I understand are decent hardware.
In case anyone requests one, as im hoping the answer lies within this, here is my report from HiJackThis:
As I said it used to work like a dream, there arent any hardware conflicts that the computer can find, it happens on either sound card I use and it's not a sound card driver update issue.
Thanks in advance!!!
