Computery Question

I just got a new computer a couple of weeks back and so far most everything is pretty cool.

But I’ve noticed something in the last couple of days that is starting to vaguely annoy me and I want to see if I can find a fix for it. I notice it both when I’m playing movie files, cd’s, and also mp3’s in Windows Media Player (and Winamp) - within the first five seconds, I’ll get a quick (less than a second long) skip. Kind of like one of those skips where it skips really really fast so it sounds like machine-gun skip. Hard to explain, but if you’ve heard it, you know what I mean. Then sometimes, but not all the time, it will slow down for a couple of seconds a little later. It might happen elsewhere, but I do most of my video watching and audio listening in WMP, so I notice it most there.

I’ve checked on my CPU usage and I’m well under the limit so I’m thinking that this has to have something to do with my soundcard. I have a “Realtek High Definition Audio” card. Looking at the mixer, it gives the following info:

Audio Driver Version: 5.10.00.5178
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c
Audio Controller: HD Audio
Audio Codec: ALC883

Is there anywhere I can check to see if there is a fix for this? I would assume there would be one.

Thanks!

Note: I just recorded a quick example of the skipping, which, since I was recording directly off of the soundcard, didn’t come out as pronounced in the file as it did in the original playback. It is however, still audible as a “slowdown” effect. If you need to hear to diagnose, please email me at my doper user name at hotmail and I can send it over. It’s a 7.0 second wav file and the error is at 3.5 seconds.

I just upgraded Winamp to their latest version and am now seeing this issue too. It is annoying and I do not know the cause. I am considering rolling myself back to the previous version.

I doubt it is your sound card. Sound cards produce different quality sound but they usually aren’t bottlenecks the way video cards are. It is most likely a general computer problem and I do not know the solution. It sounds like WMP is trying to play the file before the whole thing is situated in memory or processing.

You could try playing MP3s through iTunes or some other app, to diagnose down whether the issue is in WMP or somewhere else.