AC vs. BATTERY

[MANICDD]

I have a Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop. When Im watching a movie connected to AC POWER, no matter if its playing on WMP or DIVX, it plays fine. When I take it to BATTERY MODE, the movie jerks and jilts, slows down, speeds up. Why is this happening? I just formatted the computer and installed a fresh XP Pro over it. I have 512RAM and 3.06GHZ CPU. Thanks.

[bailey]

its possible that the battery is not supplying enough power to watch a dvd movie

[rcvalencia9]

There are different types of presets/modes in the power options in control panel.. select the Always On option and try again... When you're using the battery, it saves power to reduce the sudden discharging of the battery. Its called power management. Also check your display options. there are features in your graphics card that are disable when your notebook is running on batteries to save power.

[MANICDD]

okay now it does it even in AC POWER mode. regardless of player. please help! fresh XP Pro install, nice CPU, lotsa RAM. . what is wrong w these damn movies!? it happens to all of them. i have the latest codecs too

[bailey]

sounding like the drive is going bad

[SonicVanguard]

I doubt the drive is going bad - the 5150 is a new model from Dell.

ManicDD, you might have the latest codecs, but how those codecs were installed and how they registered with the registry is everything when playing back highly compressed video files (like DivX, XviD, WMV and the like). For example, if you install DivX codecs then later install XviD codecs, the rendering path might become corrupt when playing a DivX file because DirectShow might try and use the XviD codec in the video splitter path based on registry information. These problems usually occur when porrly developed or constructed codec packs are installed.

One thing rcvalencia9 touched on is the different settings you've got with a laptop. You can set it for maximum battery life - when it runs on battery power it will slow down the CPU, lower the backlight on your TFT screen, reduce/eliminate WinXP animations and so on. And I'm willing to bet video files might become unstable during playback.

I'd uninstall all your video codecs and start fresh with a codec pack like Kristal or Gordian Knot. Both install codecs in the right order and register them correctly (unlike the Nimo, Ace and a variety of other codec packs). Then check your power management settings - see if anything there would show a slowdown during battery use.

Dave.

[MANICDD]

how do i uninstall all current movie codecs?

thanks for this advice, everyone.

[MANICDD]

also im not sure how the kristal/gordian knot thing works. which pack do i get? do i get both kristal and GK?

thank you

[imbest123]

I doubt the drive is going bad - the 5150 is a new model from Dell.
My Inspiron 5100 is a year old and the drive burned out in 4 months but it was because I never turned it off and let it burn out. Luckily Dell amde a mistake and gave me a 40gb HD instead of a 30gb like I had ordered. Have you tried running scans for malware?

[SonicVanguard]

also im not sure how the kristal/gordian knot thing works. which pack do i get? do i get both kristal and GK?

thank you
Go into Add/Remove Programs and look for things like DivX and/or XviD. Uninstall them and reboot. Of the two codec packs, I'd download the Gordian Knot pack from www.doom9.org/ - install the codec pack (mark anything you don't want when the installer starts). Reboot again and see how things are with AC power first.

Another thing to consider is that the video files you are watching may not be properly encoded causing the jumpiness.

Dave.

[MANICDD]

imbest, no malware, brand new install

sonc, do i get the rippack or Codec pack?

thank you.

[SonicVanguard]

Codec Pack.

Dave.

[MANICDD]

sonic, you dont know how long ive been looking for a solution to this problem and how grateful i am that youve provided one.

the codec packed fixed the problem and you are to thank!

THANKS SOOOOOO MUCH!

[SonicVanguard]

sonic, you dont know how long ive been looking for a solution to this problem and how grateful i am that youve provided one.

the codec packed fixed the problem and you are to thank!

THANKS SOOOOOO MUCH!
Glad to help.

Dave.