Slowing Down

[SaMaNtHa]

Hello,

I have had this laptop for just over a year now, and use it for digital
audio and video work.. It is a Sony FRV37, very nice computer. I have not
changed any of the standard components. It runs Windows XP Home Edition,
which came with it.

My problem is, I used to be able to play back uncompressed DV video
(something like 30Mbps) without difficulty. Recently, however, video
performance has slowed. Video will freeze, while audio continues to play.
The hard drive activity seems unusually high. I have watched the task
manager, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Nothing is dominating CPU
usage except for the app playing back the video. I have not changed the
amount of video RAM allocated for graphics.

Highly compressed video seems to be just fine... however there are times
when high disk activity causes tiny breakups.

Also, I used to be able to browse the web or open apps while listening to
music in winamp without a problem, but now, hard drive activity also causes
audio to chop up...

I have run spysweeper software to see if it was some kind of spyware
wreaking havoc, but no.. it detected nothing except some cookies, which I
erradicated. None of the hardware settings in the hardware manager seem to
have changed either... acceleration on the video card is at full, and I have
tried it at all other settings, but this doesn't help-it hinders.

My only thoughts are to back everything up, and do a reinstall, but I really
don't have the time for this, and my work depends on this computer. There
really can't be any downtime..

I'm hoping there is a simple registry fix.

Any help would be supremely appreciated.

Sam

 

[Tom]

Hello,

I have had this laptop for just over a year now, and use it for digital
audio and video work.. It is a Sony FRV37, very nice computer. I have not
changed any of the standard components. It runs Windows XP Home Edition,
which came with it.

My problem is, I used to be able to play back uncompressed DV video
(something like 30Mbps) without difficulty. Recently, however, video
performance has slowed. Video will freeze, while audio continues to play.
The hard drive activity seems unusually high. I have watched the task
manager, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Nothing is dominating CPU
usage except for the app playing back the video. I have not changed the
amount of video RAM allocated for graphics.

Highly compressed video seems to be just fine... however there are times
when high disk activity causes tiny breakups.

Also, I used to be able to browse the web or open apps while listening to
music in winamp without a problem, but now, hard drive activity also
causes
audio to chop up...

I have run spysweeper software to see if it was some kind of spyware
wreaking havoc, but no.. it detected nothing except some cookies, which I
erradicated. None of the hardware settings in the hardware manager seem
to
have changed either... acceleration on the video card is at full, and I
have
tried it at all other settings, but this doesn't help-it hinders.

My only thoughts are to back everything up, and do a reinstall, but I
really
don't have the time for this, and my work depends on this computer. There
really can't be any downtime..

I'm hoping there is a simple registry fix.

Any help would be supremely appreciated.

Sam

When the last time you cleaned up your drive (e.g. removed temp files, temp
internet files, old compressed files) as well as defragged your drive?