Stuttering & Skipping Sound on WAV/MP3/CD

[ido1957]

I spent last Friday night reinstalling everything my entire computer to fix a Stuttering & Skipping Sound on WAV/MP3/CD playback. I've had to do this about four times over the past couple years. This time I lost a couple of drum midi files I wanted because I backed up with the SKIP option (same backup disks) and never backed up the more current version (my fault there).

I'm using a Compaq Presario 6310CA desktop with WIN XP Home edition. This happened before and after the SP2 updates were installed. The soundcard is a Soundmax 3.0. The whole thing is about three years old.

Before completely restoring I scoured through online forums, HP website, downloaded newer versions of Windows Media/Soundcard Drivers and contacted support center. This time I even contacted the HP support center via chat line which was cool except their advice to reinstall Windows Media from Control panel was equally no good. I had to reboot of course and despite their assurance that it would work, it didn't. I lost the chat connection and gave up contacting them back and just ended up reinstalling everything again. If nothing else it forced me to do a system backup....

Most problems are not unique to one user and I am wondering if anyone here has ever had this same problem and if so is there a solution that works other than reinstalling the entire system.

Thanks
Gerry

 

[chazverges]

had the same problem!!!

i had the same problem and i only use windows media for movies.i dont know if it will work for you but when i downloaded winamp all the skippn stopped!

 

[ido1957]

i had the same problem and i only use windows media for movies.i dont know if it will work for you but when i downloaded winamp all the skippn stopped!

Hey chazverges, I'll try that the next time it happens. Thanks!
Anyone else suffer the same fate and find another remedy? I would like to continue to use Windows Media for sound files if possible.

 

[ido1957]

i had the same problem and i only use windows media for movies.i dont know if it will work for you but when i downloaded winamp all the skippn stopped!

Hey chazverges, Thanks for your help. I would like to continue to use Windows Media for sound files if possible. Does Windows Media play your sound files ok now? I also had Quicktime installed and it was stuttering and skipping too. I haven't reinstalled Quicktime yet. But I'll keep that WINAMP thing in mind the next time it happens (and I'm sure it will).

 

[johnnymegabyte]

It's all about CPU Speed, RAM and cache
What else are you running ?
Seems like XP does something to Windows Media Player.
It's a joke at times. It crashes WMP. It's slow, and very un-reliable.
It's ironic that a MP3 will skip in the first place.

 

[ido1957]

It's all about CPU Speed, RAM and cache
What else are you running ?
Seems like XP does something to Windows Media Player.
It's a joke at times. It crashes WMP. It's slow, and very un-reliable.
It's ironic that a MP3 will skip in the first place.

This is a PC that's used mainly to surf the web and do word processing/email. A lot of times it will have streaming audio from Yahoo or Gaia (?) while surfing. I store my music files on it to listen to but it is a desktop upstairs and my recording takes place downstairs using ADAT/tape then transferred to the PC upstairs. Yes it is strange to hear an MP3 skip.....
Do you have any advice re CPU/RAM/cache to fix this problem? Thanks

 

[chazverges]

windows media player

nope the windows media player still skips when i try and play music on it and so does quicktime and i was in the same situation your in and after i took a bottle pain killers i downloaded winamp and my problems were gone.I dont know why i worked but it did.

 

[chazverges]

hey

let me know if the winamp thing worked or not please!

 

[ido1957]

let me know if the winamp thing worked or not please!

I restored my entire system last Friday before I started this thread. So although this probably will happen again, it'll probably be a long time - i.e. it was months since the last time it happened. I will try to post the results when that happens next time....Thanks chazverges

If anybody else had this problem and has a different solution - I'm open to other suggestions also....Thanks

 

[ido1957]

bump...still looking for any other suggestions

 

[ido1957]

Found the cause (I think) and solution

The stuttering and skipping thing happened again in mid-February. Just before that I heard about restore points in Windows XP from a guy at work. I found a restore point a few weeks earlier where Quicktime was installed. I believe that is the culprit, although I'm not 100% sure why the skipping didn't start immediately after Quicktime was installed (maybe I just never used WMP for a while). Anyway, I did a system restore back to a few days prior to the Quicktime install and it fixed the problem. WMP worked fine and no more skipping. Won't be installing Quicktime again anytime soon....

So I am going to say Quicktime was the culprit and restore points is the answer.

This is on XP Home edition. The system automatically creates restore points for you every so often and always after a software install. To access the restore points functionality you click on the Start button, then Run option, then type msconfig in the run box and press ENTER. Click on Launch System Restore button, then just follow the on sceen instructions to pick a restore point. It only takes about 5 minutes to do a restore on my machine.

I had a spyware virus the other day and downloaded (for 50 bucks) an anti-spyware package but it was unable to delete the spyware completely. The help desk at the software company sent me a page of instructions to try and remove the spyware (their software could find it but couldn't remove it???). So rather than go through the whole ordeal of manually deleting things I tried the restore point back a couple of days and "voila" spyware removed from System32 directory and System Registry.

Did I mention I love restore points?