Problem with Youtube and other video

I'm having a video problem. Maybe you could give your expert opinion?

My older model Compaq Notebook (Presario 2500) used to play video such as Youtube just fine, but now it just jerks and freezes all the way thru---we have good high speed internet here, and the computer upstairs works just fine. Also my sound/video sync is off--the video is several seconds behind. Is this just because my notebook is now 6 years old, or can I correct all this by reloading WinXP? One or 2 computer salesman have said the hardrive is just old, and it probably can't be fixed. Someone on a forum said said something about a "codec" and to update my Windows Media Player and Flash, but that is already configured for weekly updates...I ran a disk check on the C drive, but that turned up nothing.

I appreciate any help or comments, because I hate having to go to another terminal just to watch video!
Thanx--
Tom

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major

The jerkiness could be due to a number of things... the guys that said "the hard drive is just old, and it probably can't be fixed" are just trying to sell you a new computer and have no interest in your YouTube videos running normally; their 'advice' is worthless. Chances are, the hard drive and PC is fine. If everything else on the whole is OK, and just YouTube is a bit slow and off-sync, then it's safe to say that the PC hardware is probably healthy. If the PC ran the videos fine once before, it can do it again. YouTube has not changed that much in the past few years; not enough to cause your PC to not play the same stuff normally. The guy that said "something about a 'codec' and to update my Windows Media Player and Flash" is on the right track. The first thing I'd do is to remove your current Flash Player ActiveX component. You can download the removal tool and get the info from this link. Then do some regular system maintenance. A great guide can be found at this link. When the system maintenance is completely done, restart the PC. Then download and install a new Flash Player by visiting this link. Be sure to grab the right version for your browser (if not using Internet Explorer, be sure to click the "Different operating system or browser?" link). Then visit YouTube and see how things go. If they are still jerky, then we need to look at some other things. So, give these things a shot and let us know what happens.
:-D

 

Thanks--I did what you said just now, and I've done it before, but no--same problem.

 

does it work if you pause the video and wait I have been having the same issue with you-tube lately it seems to be a problem on there end [ especially with the older vidoes in there archive] it sounds like a buffering issue [ possibly slow INTERNET]

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ run this and then post the result

 

My result copy/paste from the website...pausing did not help
Last Result:
Download Speed: 1957 kbps (244.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 945 kbps (118.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

 

mm thats on the slow side broader line for watching streaming Video
pause should help if the connections at fault what browser are you using ?

 

I use firefox, latest version...but the problem happens on IE and Google browser as well. Maybe re-formatting XP would help? Somehow, I think my hard drive is old and shot so it wouldn't differ much.