slow video

AnneM · Feb 4, 2010

Running Windows XP professional. I have intermittent slow video when trying to watch online videos, ie Youtube. Very frustrating as it starts to clock every 3-4 seconds. Is this a ram problem. Windows help doesnt seem to direct me to an area where I can speed things up. I checked Quicktime settings, set for cable connection : tried various setting chgs but not help.
Where can I look next to speed this up?
thanks, Anne

plodr · Feb 4, 2010

Is this a ram problem.
Click to expand...

Could be but since you didn't mention how much RAM is installed, that can't be answered.

Where can I look next to speed this up?
Click to expand...

Increase your swap file, install more RAM, make your browser cache larger, try another browser, let more of the online download to the computer by pressing the pause button then hit play for smoother playback.

AnneM · Feb 4, 2010

i have 4 gb ram, where do I find the swap file?

necro61 · Feb 5, 2010

Swap file

right click My computer
Properties
advanced
performance
advanced
Virtual memory - located at the bottom of the advanced tab
Change

You can manually change the swap file for each of the hard drives you have available. If you have more than one partition on the same hard drive this can cause an issue if the swap file wants to read the same hard drive for two swap files, basicaly the disk is doing double time.

Try setting the swap file to about one and a half times the system ram as a rough guide, do a restart as required and retry.

Swap file is a storage area on your hard disk where the next set of instructions are loaded and stored for processing via the physical ram to the cpu.. dont think bigger is always better - dont set this to something silly like 10 Gigabytes or you'll do yourself no favors.

G.luck:wave

collinsl · Feb 5, 2010

What speed is your internet connection?

Whaen you are on youtube, does the video just jerk or does the little processing ring in the video show up?

Just FYI, YouTube uses flash player, not quicktime.

Have you tried upgrading to the latest flash player?

What speed is your processor?

plodr · Feb 5, 2010

With 4GB RAM, you don't need to install more. Just double check that the computer sees that you have about 3.2GB RAM. (That's all that will be showing if you are using a 32 bit version of Windows; if your XP Pro is 64 bit, then check that it is showing 4GB of RAM).

You have a cable connection, unless it is very slow, that shouldn't cause a bottleneck either.

Now, depending on what you are watching on YouTube, the slowdown can come from them.
The only control you would have is to pause in the screen and watch the pink buffer line move towards the right. After it is about 1/2 way to the right, you'd probably have enough of the video buffered in your temp storage that you wouldn't have a hiccup every 3-4 seconds as it downloads more and tries to catch up with the playback.

As a test, let the video play, hiccups and all, then hit replay. The hiccups should now be gone. If they are, this points to a buffering problem on YouTube's end, not your connection nor your computer.
If, on the other hand, the hiccups continue, then I want you to open Task Manager and see how many processes are running. You may have something, like an av or malware detection program scanning as the file downloads and creating a stall.

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slow video

AnneM Private E-2

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member

AnneM Private E-2

necro61 Sergeant

collinsl MajorGeek

plodr MajorGeek Super Extraordinaire Moderator Staff Member