Any tips on making a DVD run smooth on my puter?

[Tixx]

I have a Dell with somewhere around a 1.4 processor, 512mb Ram, 20% free hard drive, using WinDVD and tried some Llama program too. I have a 40 gb hard drive...not sure what else people would need to know to answer this.

Sometimes it is running smooth, but most of the time it is choppy as all hell and I can't watch them it is so bad.

Thanks for any help.:)

[JackAxe]

To me it sounds like your resources are being used up by background apps.

I would quit all other apps before watching a DVD and also check to see which background tasks are running and can be stopped.

When your PC starts up, are there quite a few icons that load on your Start Bar, like IM as an example?

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

I would start with a cpu monitor. which OS?

Monitor CPU use while DVD is playing, and memory. If you pass 512 including the OS, the OS starts swapping things out to disk to make them all run in less memory.

which OS are you running on it?

[JackAxe]

He's running Buddha XP.

<]=)

[neogin]

have you ever done your defragment your hdd so far ???? maybe, it's time to do ..

what is your visual memory ???? set it at 500mb on d: if you have 2 partitions .. c: and d:

get rids of startup app as Jackaxe mentioned ..

dvd clean ???? try new dvd then .. not porn ones .. geez Tixx .. no wonder why your computer didn't run smooth :p

software ?? mpeg2 codec is running good ??

[Tixx]

To me it sounds like your resources are being used up by background apps.

I would quit all other apps before watching a DVD and also check to see which background tasks are running and can be stopped.

When your PC starts up, are there quite a few icons that load on your Start Bar, like IM as an example?

<]=)


Thanks JackAxe.:) So what is the layman way of doing this?

[Tixx]

I would start with a cpu monitor. which OS?

Monitor CPU use while DVD is playing, and memory. If you pass 512 including the OS, the OS starts swapping things out to disk to make them all run in less memory.

which OS are you running on it?


Windows XP. Or *LOL* Buddha XP:D as JackAxe stated :p

Where do I find the monitor?

[Tixx]

have you ever done your defragment your hdd so far ???? maybe, it's time to do ..

what is your visual memory ???? set it at 500mb on d: if you have 2 partitions .. c: and d:

get rids of startup app as Jackaxe mentioned ..

dvd clean ???? try new dvd then .. not porn ones .. geez Tixx .. no wonder why your computer didn't run smooth :p

software ?? mpeg2 codec is running good ??

I looked into defrag and with 20% free it says there is no need.

Visual Memory? I have no idea what it is or how to set it.

I thought playing Barry White in the background would make the porn run smoother. :confused:

Codec? I don't know what that is.

[SamuraiCatJB]

Windows XP. Or *LOL* Buddha XP:D as JackAxe stated :p

Where do I find the monitor?

the easiest way is to ctrl-alt-del (once), however the gentler and more preferred method is usually a right-click with the mouse on an unused portion of the quick-launch bar (between start and the active icons.

what you will be looking for is from the performance tab, the cpu should not go above 90% on a DVD, if it ever hits 100% your CPU cannot keep up with the DVD. Then we start getting into the fun in how to help. :)

what to look for:
Memory going over your installed memory (512mb on the system, Pf utilization says "600mb" for example)
CPU reaching 100%.
If it's not one of those it may be system resources, and I don't remember how to find that....

[neogin]

Tixx .. how many icons on the bottom right bar do you see ???

at the clock area ..

next, start --> all programs --> startup --> delete whatever you think you don't use in here .. then do the following steps .. (to delete .. right click on an icon and choose delete)

then start --> run --> type msconfig

then go to the last bar .. uncheck what you think you don't know out .. and apply it ..

reboot .. case close :D

[Tixx]

Tixx .. how many icons on the bottom right bar do you see ???

at the clock area ..

next, start --> all programs --> startup --> delete whatever you think you don't use in here .. then do the following steps .. (to delete .. right click on an icon and choose delete)

then start --> run --> type msconfig

then go to the last bar .. uncheck what you think you don't know out .. and apply it ..

reboot .. case close :D


I have 10 now after doing what you said. DVD still sucks.:( Frustrating.

[Tixx]

the easiest way is to ctrl-alt-del (once), however the gentler and more preferred method is usually a right-click with the mouse on an unused portion of the quick-launch bar (between start and the active icons.

what you will be looking for is from the performance tab, the cpu should not go above 90% on a DVD, if it ever hits 100% your CPU cannot keep up with the DVD. Then we start getting into the fun in how to help. :)

what to look for:
Memory going over your installed memory (512mb on the system, Pf utilization says "600mb" for example)
CPU reaching 100%.
If it's not one of those it may be system resources, and I don't remember how to find that....

CPU Usage for the most part stays low and the movie seems quite choppy when it is low. Then there are random spikes that go anywhere from 70-100%

Looking at PF Usage, it seems stable around 488 MB.

[SamuraiCatJB]

If it is choppy even when CPU is low, sounds like it is having difficulty keeping up on the drive. 488mb is not good when you only have 512mb, but still under the limit.

Okay next thing to do is watch the DVD drive light, see if the drive always lights up when you see a choppy segment.

The other thing to do is watch that 70% - 100%, that is bad. If you reach 100% then the system is falling behind, it reached it's processing capability limit. The next thing to do is to find out if the DVD player is taking up those resources or something else is.

On the same task manager you will see a "processes" tab. When you click on it you will see every task running on your system. Click on the word "CPU" at the top of its column and everything will be sorted by CPU percent. However first time you click it it sorts decending which is a pain to read the most used items at the bottom, so click it again until you see the high number at the top under the word "CPU".

You can do this before you start the DVD player and the process using most of hte CPU should be "System Idle Process" meaning you computer is not reaching its limit. Now start your DVD player, and start watching a DVD. Watch and see all the items with a number on them, there had better be only a handful (no more than 5 or 6 registering above 0). When the stuttering starts, who is using CPU amounts above 0? write down the tasks. They will change themselves around as they use more or less CPU usage from second to second. If you are having a problem reading them, use the pull down menu to slow it down. From the top line: View->Update Speed->Low.

Post anything with a number 1 or higher here, along with its number which represents percentage of CPU per sample time.

[neogin]

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10163_7-5555103-1.html?tag=cnetfd.ld

try that Tixxy ..

ps.. i think that .. you should check here ..

start --> all programs --> startup --> delete what u think u don't need ..

10 icons are a bit .. too much ..

[SamuraiCatJB]

10 icons are a bit much, but it also depends on how many are sampling and how often from the CPU. If he lists a dozen processes all pulling 1 from the CPU, he is in dire need to trim those 10. But if the problem with bringing the processor high is not related to those 10 icons, we'll be back after he trims them.

I know it is slow, but first find the culprit, then jail him. Don't jail everyone and then find the culpret amoung them. :)

You are correct though, with that slow of a processor he should minimize the multi-tasking he does, keep only the necessary items loaded in memory.

[Tixx]

I have 10 in that lower right bar, but not 10 in start>programs>startup. There are 6 and some are not in that lower right bar on the screen.

And when I tried to uncheck all those boxes it kept telling me about it with a pop-up reminder thingy every time I logged back on.:confused: