Stuttering laptop

[munkygunn182]

Tech guru's of the org,

I have an Acer Aspire 5536 laptop, running a genuine copy of Windows 7 Home 32bit.

As of about November, media playback almost brings the laptop to a standstill, the audio is distorted and stutters, and the video jumpy.

The laptop is a year old, I've given it a good deep format to try an cure this to no avail, tried windows Vista and 7, both with the same issues.

All drivers are up to date, and there are no hardware faults showing in the device manager.

I've run out of time for it, having thought of it today, I wonder if the hard drive is dying. I service laptops on the side for a few extra quid from workmates, and I've done 3 of the very same Acer's all needed new hard drives, I wonder if mine's going that way.

Any advice would be excellent as I'm running out of time, and need to produce a DJ demo shortly!

Cheers
Craig

[-Ralph-]

Those symptoms would be consistent with a drive failure, but I'd have thought you'd have seen it in other areas too. Nothing in the event log? What is perfmon showing when you play media?

[Amplimator]

Have you tried just updating codecs?

[-Ralph-]

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/drive-monitor

[munkygunn182]

Drive monitor's saying the drive's running a bit hot, 49* as opposed to 42*

[-Ralph-]

Have you tried just updating codecs?

He's tried Vista and 7 both from clean builds, did WMP12 use the same codec versions as 11?

[Dave Mac]

download vlc media player and try that, its got inbuilt codec

[munkygunn182]

Will do, I'm at a 50th party tonight, so if you all leave your ideas here, i'll go through em tomorrow and see what happens!

Thanks org!

[Amplimator]

He's tried Vista and 7 both from clean builds, did WMP12 use the same codec versions as 11?

WMP sucks, period. ;)

VLC player is very good but still has the odd funny one ocassionally so a good codec pack is always the way to go. Depends on how many different formats you d/load and/or use.

As Ralph said if it were a drive failure other stuff would be affected not just media. ( i.e. startup/running tasks/programs etc etc)

[Quiff Wichard]

too much porn

[-Ralph-]

i'll go through em tomorrow and see what happens!

Thanks org!

Start with your event logs first, don't spend hours trying to solve problem B, if a problem A is staring you in the face. We've all been there and kicked ourselves for it.

[-Ralph-]

BTW, how well is it playing CD's and DVD's that are not read from the HDD? Or media off USB?

[Wideboy]

eeuughh my ****ty acer did this, i threw it at the wall and it fixed it..........










THE PIECE OF CRAP NEVER WORKED AGAIN SO I WAS MUCH HAPPIER!!