Skip to main content ↑ ↓

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: Reproduction Problems (Read 2493 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Reproduction Problems

Hello,

This is a bit hard to explain but I'll try to get the message through as accurately as possible.

I'm using Windows Vista SP2 and foobar2000 v1.03 and I've been experiencing some problems in the reproduction of my files.
Mainly when opening some pages in Mozilla Firefox (v3.6.8) the sound suffers from what can be best described as small cuts. Something that resembles the interference when you hear an audio file which is damaged due to bad ripping or due to some CD scratches. The problem is that the files are not damaged and only happens while browsing... For example, if I search for the second that "cut" after the problem, it will play just fine. It's only in that very moment mainly when the page is loading.

At the beginning I would only reboot and the problem would disappear but this is becoming worst. Sometimes, after the problems starts to manifest itself, almost every single page load causes this to happen and with "bigger" cuts. I'm also noticing that the problem is now more frequent and appears also earlier after I reboot. Summarily: it's getting "worst".

I've updated foobar2000 to the last version and so did I with Firefox and all its components. I don't know if this is important but my files are all stored in a external hard disk drive. This was, however, not a problem until some weeks ago.

Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thank you very much in advance.

Reproduction Problems

Reply #1 –
These "cuts" are usually called "skipping". Perhaps that is why your searches came up empty. You're far from the only person to ever have an issue with skipping.

Quote from: PhiLiz on
At the beginning I would only reboot and the problem would disappear but this is becoming worst. Sometimes, after the problems starts to manifest itself, almost every single page load causes this to happen and with "bigger" cuts. I'm also noticing that the problem is now more frequent and appears also earlier after I reboot.

This makes me think that it is a DPC latency issue. You could run this check to find out.
elevatorladylevitateme

Reproduction Problems

Reply #2 –
First and foremost, thank you for the reply. Specifically, the correct denomination of the problem has helped my search in this forum and throughout the net.

While searching for "skipping" in the forum I came across some advices (including some from you) that said to increase the buffer length. That seems to be ineffective since it's on the 2000ms mark and the drop-outs continue.

I ran the tool you indicated and there is indeed a latency issue. First I ran the tool when I was playing music right after I started Windows and it already showed some high latency values but mostly in the "yellow zone" or at the beginning of the red zone. Then, after the skipping became more frequent I ran the tool again and the results are well above the red zone hitting as much as 16000.

In the site's tool it's written to disable some devices. From your experience what's the most common cause of latency problems?

Thank you very much once again for your assistance.
 

Reproduction Problems

Reply #3 –
Quote from: PhiLiz on
In the site's tool it's written to disable some devices. From your experience what's the most common cause of latency problems?

Buggy device drivers.
I believe the page I linked you to above explains this much. It should also give you the steps to help you locate which driver you have is buggy. It's just a process of elimination
If there's no update for that driver, you can decide if disabling the device is an option.

I believe some common causes are Nvidia's powerMizer function and certain network card drivers. You might start there.
elevatorladylevitateme