Mind of it's own

[Wayne Maxwell]

Sorry if this doesn'y belong here. I couldn't think of anywhere else for it.
My problem is this:

My pc has suddenly decided it doesn't want to process video. I use a pentium III 1000 with an Asus motherboard and an ATI Raedon 9700 card. It's a little behind the times but has always worked well enough for my editing needs.

Sudenly it will no longer play video smoothly. The video stutters and the sound is out of sync. This happens in premiere pro AND with a regular avi files played on Windows media player. It also happens in software with video and audio embedded in the pragram.

This computer doesn't link to the internet so the possibilities of a virus are nil although I recently uploaded some firmware for my cd driver. I pretty sure that has nothing to do with it. I notice that the computer is running a bit slow as well (menus ect.)

I did a defrag but that didn't help. Any ideas on how I can tune my PC back up to where it was before. Oh yea I have also rebooted many times with no luck.

Thanks in advance.

Wayne

[Dan Keaton]

It is good that you performed a defrag, but how much space is left on your disk?

If you are almost full, the standard Microsoft defrag does not do a good job.
After the defrag was peformed, did you still have fragmented files?

Which operating system are you running?

[Marcus Marchesseault]

The primary way of diagnosing a computer problem is to undo recent changes and to simplify your system. The first thing I would do is unplug the CD that had changes. You don't need it for editing, so try that first. Sometimes, seemingly completely unrelated things cause problems. Aftre trying that, start unplugging other things not needed for editing. A failing component can have unusual effects. Remove RAM modules in case one of them is bad. After you get down to one module, swap it with another single module to make sure the first one isn't the culprit. I think you get the idea. Simplify.

Of course, the most likely thing that will get things working again is to reinstall windows. If you have a clone image from when things were working, that makes life much easier.

[Jonathan Jones]

Any chance that you recently used the PC to play back an Audio CD embedded with Sony's anti-piracy malware
-Jon

[Wayne Maxwell]

-- It is good that you performed a defrag, but how much space is left on your disk?

If you are almost full, the standard Microsoft defrag does not do a good job.
After the defrag was peformed, did you still have fragmented files?

Which operating system are you running?--

still have around 23 gigs left and yea there were still fragmented files. Running windows xp.

Marcus I will give your suggestions a try. Thanks!

And Jonathan; there is that posibilty although I can't recall doing that recently. I did however bring a .wav from a cd ripped from another computer and use it from a jump drive. (my cd so no piracy issues).
If that is the problem how would I know and then fix?

[Wayne Maxwell]

oh and sorry the card is a Raedon 9800

[Dan Keaton]

Microsoft's XP defrag wants at least 15% free for it to perform a defrag.

It will operate with less, but will leave fragramented files.

Even if you have 23 gigabytes left, depending on the size of your hard disk, you may have less than 15%.

It is acceptable to perform the defrag again, even twice in a row.

If you are under 15%, I would attempt to clean up your hard disk by moving some of the files to another drive, if possible, or cleaning out your recyle bin, or taking other temporary measures to get more disk space for the defrag. These temporary measures could including clearing out of your Internet cache. Once you have more space available on your disk, your defrag will work better.

Alternative defrag programs exist, such as the O & O Defrag. These do a better job, but are not free.

Please be advised that defragmenting may or may not solve your problem, but is a simple first step to accomplish. It is desirable to rule this rule this out as the source of your problem. A fragmented video file can exhibit some of the symptoms that you are reporting.

[Rob Lohman]

In theory the new CD player firmware could be a/the problem. Try unhooking
it when you open the case (computer powered off) and see if that fixes the
problem. Why might this happen? It could be the new firmware interferes
with another device if you have two sharing a cable.

If you have the case open do check if all the fans are spinning as well. It
might also be that some hardware is starting to "break down", although that's
not quite likely since that will usually result in crashes or non-bootable systems.

Good luck!