Ppt animations working perfect; now off & can't figure out why

[4iuo-Laura]

Ppt 2007 - New Laptop Vista. 4G RAM.. Created Missions slideshow. Includes:
custom animations on photos and/or text--all in sync with different music
clips,and slides have diff. timing for transition. Even has 2 movie clips
included. Have shown it over a dozen times in past 2 months. Has always
worked perfect. Today, ALL slide transitions & custom animation timing is
off--very slow to change. Even a :01 sec. black slide take 7 sec. before the
slide moves. I timed the different sections. The music clips play the speed
they are suppose to, but the slides don't match up anymore. One section is
01:37 in length--music wise. It took the pictures another 01:08 to finish.
Played other Ppt shows that were perfect--they're not right now either. No
new software added to laptop. Any thoughts what's causing animations to slow
down?

 

[4iuo-Laura]

Thank you, but all your suggestions were tried before I posted.
Shutting down didn't help. Nothing unusual running in background. I always
have Task Manager on. Resources, CPU Usage, Page File Usage, are at same
levels they always are.

I think it's odd Ppt worked fine until I changed the screen resolution for
the dual monitor project. I think it's a Vista quirk. I sent same help
message to Vista forum. They refer me to the Ppt forum.

Any other thoughts of something I can check?

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Vista, and software in general, tries to be "helpful".

I've noticed that some of the advanced features seem to "kick-in" when I am
doing something time sensitive. That is probably more Murphy than design,
but it is anoying in the extreem. Some of these programs also do not show
in Task Manager. Network access is often the cause in my case. If your
presentation is stored on a network, it could also be that there is
increased network traffic.

I would suggest you disconnect from the intra/internet, disable all virus
scanning, turn off the blasted file indexing, defragment your hard drive,
and watch your hard drive indicator light for "extra" disk access symptoms
(disk access when you are not doing anything). You may also want to run a
Belarc Advisor report to see what all is installed on your system. Look for
updates that were installed about the time that your problems started.

Some programs continue to try to "help" by changing system settings or even
which subroutines are used. This may be the case, since you mention you
have two movies in your presentation. Media software programs often change
or replace the DLL's used by PowerPoint because they feel theirs is the
best. It may be, but the user is not informed of these changes and usually
can not opt out of them.

Windows, anti-virus, video drivers, and other software may have been updated
or patched to prevent security breaches. Unfortunately, these inprovemnts
usually have a CPU usage impact. It may not be much, but if it requires
that your presentation file be re-examined on each access, this could be
significant. The PowerPoint program is very touchy-feely with its stored
presentation.

So, Laura, I guess what I am saying is that you are hosed, but I'm trying to
say it nicely. PowerPoint has never been a timing program, although it can
do this on occasion. It does not repeat timings accuratly enough to make
music videos, or even exact timed slideshows. This is worse when it is
combined with a sound clip that runs for more than one slide. If timings
are critical to the project, you really should use a different tool, such as
MovieMaker. I have done many projects, that started as slide shows, and
ended as movies; all due to timing issues.

I hope this helps in understanding and that you are not too put off by the
answer.

Bill Dilworth