Stuttering Audio

Hello all,

Thanks to the recent public beta, I installed the 7000 build of W7 on my old laptop. The laptop is 3 years old, it is: AMD Athlon 64, 2.0 GHz, 512 MB of memory. Here is an extended information sheet, .xps file)

Whenever I play any media, it stutters. This happens for audio and video, under iTunes, WMP, Media Center, and VLC. Even when I turn off Aero Glass, simple audio stutters.

What could be causing this problem? I had someone suggest a RAM upgrade... would upgrading my RAM solve this, or is it a software/driver problem?

Matthew

It could just be a driver problem, as I guess they might not be totally compatible with Windows 7.

Which sound card do you have, and did you use old Vista drivers for it?

OK, this is strange, but today all audio and video is playing fine, even with Aero Glass on... I don't know what I did, but apparently it worked.

Matthew

Device Manager says "Conexant AC-Link Audio", I couldn't tell you outside of that (sorry, I am a Mac guy).

I haven't installed any drivers personally, I did a fresh install (reformat) from XP.

Matthew

Do you know what make and model the laptop is, as I might be able to find out from that. If it's still working then I guess it doesn't matter though - it could be that Windows Update automatically got some better drivers.

Sure, it is a Compaq (Presario) R4000.

Between the time it didn't work and the time it worked we blew out the fans with a can of air, and we unplugged and plugged back in the RAM and hard drive (I was thinking about replacing those).

Also before it started working I may have opened the device manager and said to "Upgrade Drivers," but every time I did that it said that my drivers were up to date. I don't know if it meant "they were already up to date" or "we updated it for you."

Anywho, I am constantly impressed with W7... my mind is finally changing about M$!

Matthew

This is a common problem in Vista as well. Are you coming from XP? In Vista, Microsoft dropped directsound support. This is the cause of audio glitches in Vista. I have been running 7 for a few days and the "problem" seems to be present in 7 as well. Perhaps this will explain things a bit. I have still not found a solution to the Vista problem.... I continue to try. I have been able to stunt, not halt, the glitches in Vista when my wifi card is off (tweaking settings and installing "fixes" for programs). But, this is surely still not a fix. I have not experimented with 7 as much (I thought MS would have addressed the problem). It seems MS is simply ignoring the situation. Sad really, as I do audio production, and I don't touch my recordings with Vista, and now probably not with 7 as well. I have to use my Mac for music software (I hate Macs, audio is all I use my Mac for; Linux, too, is far behind with audio production). MS is really loosing out on a wide range of consumers with this problem. I imagine those interested in film and video production are in the same boat. Those I know are on Mac's too. (Side note: I feel Macs operations are illogical (their attempts at simplicity for the casual user cripple the logical power user), and Windows is speedily catching up. I miss the days of DOS.) -Brian

I think what you mean to say is "Mac operations are illogical to Window power users." As a Mac power user, I think that OS X is logical while Windows is amazingly illogical.

But I don't want to start THAT fight here. =: >

Matthew