Can't watch videos good

[chgo29]

1 1/2 years ago I built myself a computer - which has been working really good. But, I never tried watching videos until the last few months or so. I've tried to watch videos from "You Tube" and the Chicago Bears web site has videos that I've tried to watch - but it just doesn't work good. The video downloads OK - then it starts to play - plays OK for about 7 or 8 seconds - then just freezes for about 4 or 5 seconds - then plays for awhile - freezes - and on and on - thru the whole video. The longer I play any particular video the shorther the "play" time before it freezes. I will list below my components and my internet connection. I hope someone can tell me what would solve this problem. Is it a hardware defeciency? Or do I maybe need some kind of software? Or the next computer I buy or build what should I do differently?

OK - Here's what I've got. PROCESSOR - AMD Sempron 2400+ 1.667 GHz. MOTHERBOARD - Asus A7V8X-X w/ onboard Audio ADI1980. VIDEO CARD - Asus ATI Radeon A7000/T/64M
RAM - Corsair two DDR256MB cards for 512MB RAM. HD - 40GB Western Digital operating with26 GB free space. Running XP Home with all updates. My internet connection is medium speed broadband 252 kbps download, 185 kbps upload. Any thoughts? Cliff

[Pro100Blues]

I'd bet that the reason the video is stopping and starting is that there is a program running that is already taking up most of your processor. If you open task manager and click the performance tab, you can see what is going on with the CPU. If it looks like a regular heart beat with the peak at 100% CPU usage, then I would bet it is an antivirus or spyware program taking all the CPU but only for brief periods. Try unloading the program you think might be hogging things.

This is my opinion, but I had a similar problem the other day and when I temporarily turned off my firewall suite, the problem went away. I also was disconnected from the internet while the protection was off. DVD's ran smooth soon as I did that. Might work for you too, but make sure you dont turn off protection while on the internet. Besides, it might be some other program hogging things. Could be spyware, try clearing cookies or hunting down and killing the spyware.

[Cricket]

How large are the video files? You only have 512MB of RAM and that might be holding you back. Adding another 512MB will help.

And how many background programs are loading up with Windows? Do you have a lot of icons by the clock?

And do you defrag your hard drive often?

Have you scanned for viruses, spyware, trojans and hijackers?

Cricket

[chgo29]

Thanks guys for your suggestions. I had scanned for viruses and spyware, and I do defrag regularly. Task Manager showed my CPU usage between 1 and 3 precent with no spikes. Physical memory was 523 MB with 361MB available - 152MB in system cache. I am running 0 "applications" and 31 "processes". But, gee, if I wanted to close any of those "processes" I don't know how I'd decide which ones to close. Their names are all in "computerese". I sure can't tell what they mean. Cricket - you ask how large the video files are. I don't know how to find that out - they just download and then play. They play in "Macromedia Flash Player 7". Maybe I need a different "player" program.

Incidentally, I sure had a hard time finding "Task Manager". Couldn't find it in "Tools" or "Accessories" or in "Control Panel". Windows "Help" was of no help - they had a definition but didn't say how to find it. Couldn't find it in "Search" or "Run". Finally Google found it for me. And, gee - it's a great tool. Even if I don't figure out how to view videos, you guys have taught me about "Task Manager" - Thanks. For people reading this post that aren't familiar with "Task Manager", you open it by right clicking on any open spot on the taskbar. A menu pops up. One of the options is "task manager". Click on that.

So, thanks for your suggestions. For guys like me these forums are so helpful. Cliff

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by chgo29 For people reading this post that aren't familiar with "Task Manager", you open it by right clicking on any open spot on the taskbar. A menu pops up. One of the options is "task manager". Click on that.

Another method is hitting the Ctrl, Alt and Del keys at the same time and then click on Task Manager in the box that pops up.

Cricket

[tetsuo]

I would try this, also - when you get to the page you want to view on YouTube or wherever, when the stream glitches just pause it for a minute and let the video load before playing anymore. Once it's loaded, then play.