[zanet]

I recently did a fresh install of 2000 but have noticed that whenever I watch a video it "lags". I tried a few static clips on You Tube and even the sound is not quite right (but not nearly as bad as the visuals). This is the first time I've done a proper test run with this machine, having installed everything from windows update, the UURollup and a few essentials (avast 7, firefox 12, flash player 11.1.202.55). Even some old games I tried seem laggy. Is this a video card issue or something to do with the new updates?

[tomasz86]

Have you installed the graphic card drivers?

[zanet]

Yes, I did. That was one of the first things I installed (along with the sound and chipset drivers) before I got into the updates. I just removed Avast and it seems to be smoother now. At first I thought it was due to some prolonged AV update making it laggy but the definitions and software updates were done a while back. An hour into surfing around and the little icon was still spinning. I've used Avast before but it's never caused lag like that. I'm not sure if that's the main cause but it's all trial and error when you don't know much about these things. Are there any settings on the video card that might cause this?

[tomasz86]

What's the hardware concerned? Is is an old machine?

[allen2]

Perhaps hardware video acceleration is disabled.

This post has been edited by allen2: 19 May 2012 - 01:11 PM

[zanet]

tomasz86, on 19 May 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

What's the hardware concerned? Is is an old machine?

Yes, it is. It was custom built around 2002. P4 1.6G, 512ram, Platinix Mobo, Nvidia Geforce FX 5700, Sound Blaster 5.1

allen2, on 19 May 2012 - 01:10 PM, said:

Perhaps hardware video acceleration is disabled.

I checked that and it was set to full. I experimented lowering the settings (including disabling them entirely) but it didn't make a difference.

Like I said before removing the latest version of Avast definitely helped but it's still not right. I'm thinking it might be a problem with a graphics card.

[tomasz86]

Do even low quality Youtube videos lag? The Pentium 4 1.6GHz will probably not be able to play higher resolution videos smoothly.

[Browncoat]

Hell, my 2008 build struggles now with some YT vids.
nVidia 8600 GTS, P4 #550 @3400 MHz and many
of the new 720p .mkv file format vids, prompting conversion
with SUPER <c> to .avi format at a rate of ~300MB per hour.

[Arminius]

Browncoat, on 21 May 2012 - 04:37 AM, said:

Hell, my 2008 build struggles now with some YT vids.
nVidia 8600 GTS, P4 #550 @3400 MHz and many
of the new 720p .mkv file format vids, prompting conversion
with SUPER <c> to .avi format at a rate of ~300MB per hour.

Yup, some Youtube videos are so resource hungry older computers have a hard time keeping up. It also depends on the connection speed.

@zanet
I don't think there is anything wrong with your graphics card. You may want to upgrade your computer though. I know a vendor who has a box full of assorted P4 processors 2.0 GHz or better he sells for $5 each. 512MB sticks of PC3200 DDR RAM are $7 each. He even gives you one month to return the item in case it proves to be defective. You should look for computer recyclers in your area.

The price of new hardware has come down so much in recent years that the price of old components has had to come down accordingly. The sad thing is it is only a matter of time before it will no longer be profitable to be a used parts dealer and most of that stuff will be melted down for gold recovery.

[tomasz86]

@Arminius
Buying a P4 even for $5 doesn't make much sense as you can buy Pentium Dual Core E2140 for as low as $15.

P4 (no matter how fast) will have problems even with heavy Flash based web pages...

[Arminius]

tomasz86, on 22 May 2012 - 06:16 AM, said:

@Arminius
Buying a P4 even for $5 doesn't make much sense as you can buy Pentium Dual Core E2140 for as low as $15.

P4 (no matter how fast) will have problems even with heavy Flash based web pages...

Correct me if I am wrong but I don't think a Pentium Dual Core E2140 will fit into the socket on zanet's Pentium 4 motherboard no matter how hard he tries to hammer it in. As far as I am concerned a $5 upgrade makes perfect sense.

My internet box runs on only a 1GHz Pentium III and I get by OK though I am thinking of retiring it and replacing it with something faster. In my case the slow down is caused by the virus scanner getting bogged down scanning the flash files as they download rather than the actual playing of the flash animations....and that is on an a board with an Intel i810 chipset.

[zanet]

I tried a different version of flash (10.1) and it appears to have fixed the problem. Some videos are still a bit choppy (visuals not in sync with the sound) but most of the ones I tried (testing the same videos from before) work fine now. I don't know why flash 11.1.202.55 would cause lag (I'd have thought the opposite, the newer the better) but despite having most of the post SP4 updates, it wasn't right. Pretty weird. I don't know if I can call this "solved" since I'd prefer to have the latest versions without all these teething problems but I'll take what I can get.

[Arminius]

You mentioned in another thread that your computer is from 2001 which means your motherboard is 11 years old. Before you spend any money you really ought to open up the case, blow out the dust and have a good look at the caps (capacitors) on the motherboard.

If you see any leaking caps your best move would be to get another computer or motherboard. If there are caps that are only slightly swollen then you may get a couple years more life out of it but its days are clearly numbered and performance may suffer. Sometimes you will find only a single blown cap, or more likely on an old board you will find that all the caps of a particular type have come to the end of their life and are swollen. Ironically from what I have seen boards made in 1999 hold up better than boards made in 2001 and later.


As for your videos lagging...
What is your connection speed? The higher resolution flash videos are quite large and stop and start because they take longer to download than it takes to play them. Try pausing the video for a couple of minutes while it downloads and then resume play as the progress bar moves to the right of the screen. Make sure the download stays ahead of the playback.

And if the sound isn't in synch with the visual it may just be a poorly made video. See if you get the same problem on a different computer. Don't automatically assume you have a hardware or software problem.

[zanet]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by capacitors. Are you referring to the large white slots the cards plug into? I have actually had the case open and looked around on several occasions to clean the fans etc. Having looked at it the other day I didn't see anything that (to my mind) was "leaking" or "swollen". I assume by leaking you mean actual liquid of some kind coming from the parts?

My connection speed is around 12mb. I did try pausing the videos like you suggested but it didn't make a difference. It only improved after I downgraded to flash 10.1. I have tried with this on another PC and You Tube is fine. Mind you, everything is fine with the other one because it's fairly new and about 3 times as powerful. I wanted to get this one set up properly so I use it for my older games and general browsing.

[bphlpt]

LOL -







Cheers and Regards

[zanet]

Thanks for the pics bphlpt! Why the "LOL" though? I'm a novice when it comes to these things, so I have to ask what might seem like silly questions. I had another look at the motherboard and I don't see anything that's leaking or rusty looking. As for what's "bulging", I couldn't really say. Those capacitors are too small for the untrained eye to distinguish.

[submix8c]

LOL again (heh...)! Hand-held magnifiers - $5 (sometimes with a small light on it) plus small flashlight = able to see stuff... Chipset names, etc... POWER DISCONNECTED, natch.

[zanet]

Why did you mention chipset names? I'm aware I can use a magnifying glass. However, they're clearly rusty or leaking I don't see much difference between the two capcitors in the first pic bphlpt posted, aside from color and a slightly domed top. Is that what I'd be looking out for?

[submix8c]

Yup! Bad Caps (look here - www.badcaps.net). Chipsets (or a single Chip Name) on a given "chip" on any given piece of hardware (MoBo, Sound Card, etc) helps to identify WHAT it is (almost) EXACTLY for the purpose of finding Correct Drivers, in addition to using the Registry to determine what the VID/PID values are to get EXACTLY (and NOT "almost") the right Driver.

This post has been edited by submix8c: 26 May 2012 - 12:52 PM

[bphlpt]

The top of a good cap should be flat or ever so slightly concave. If it is bulging even a little bit it is probably starting to fail. You might be able to feel it depending on how convex it has become.

A good tool to help identify the components on your board for the purposes of getting the right drivers etc, is CPU-Z - http://www.cpuid.com...ares/cpu-z.html

Cheers and Regards

This post has been edited by bphlpt: 26 May 2012 - 01:47 PM