# Laptop CPU usage / large video files problem

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laptop-cpu-usage-large-video-files-problem/219396>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 16, 2003, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laptop-cpu-usage-large-video-files-problem/219396 "2003-12-16T21:10:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laptop-cpu-usage-large-video-files-problem/219396/1 "2003-12-16T21:10:18Z")

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I’ve been having a few problems with my laptop lately. I have a 2 GHz Celeron CPU, 256 MB of ram, around 10 gigs out of 30 free, and I’m running Windows XP.

I run disk defragmenter often, every several days.

When I watch anything large in DivX (Legal, of course :D) I sometimes run into the problem of it being choppy. Not always, but sometime. I’ll close all of my other non-system programs through Task Manager and get my CPU usage down to the 20s or 30s but still that rarely works. And will setting the priority of windows media player higher hurt or help what I’m trying to do?

Any ideas?

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laptop-cpu-usage-large-video-files-problem/219396/2 "2003-12-16T22:43:36Z")

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I think DIVX has a DIVX format player that is free download from their site. Why don’t you try that player instead of the windows media player.

Even if you use the windows media player installing Divx will install the latest Divx codex on your system and WMP should use it.

[http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=toptab\_divx\_from\_/software/browse.php](http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=toptab_divx_from_/software/browse.php).

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**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laptop-cpu-usage-large-video-files-problem/219396/3 "2003-12-16T22:51:33Z")

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Perhaps check out… “Power Options”? A Celeron on a laptop video card isn’t very fast, but it should be able to play such files decently. I own some fairly low-end laptops, but I imagine if one of the newer ones tried to go into “power save” mode or whatever, that might affect things.

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**Author:** ![rookie523](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@rookie523](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rookie523)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laptop-cpu-usage-large-video-files-problem/219396/4 "2003-12-16T23:04:35Z")

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Are you running the divx movie off the cd?  
or is the movie played off the HD?

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**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laptop-cpu-usage-large-video-files-problem/219396/5 "2003-12-16T23:46:49Z")

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I fixed the problem… An updated version of media player along with the power options did the trick.

thanks.