MP3 Playback Problem: Audio stutters / skips / choppy

**durwood** · 11-19-2006, 06:06 PM

Is your problem with music or DVD's or everything audio related? Mine skips/choppy during DVD playback only because of the bandwidth issue on USB. I am using a soundblaster 24bit live USB. The resource usage is just too high a demand.

**Autonator** · 11-19-2006, 11:50 PM

510SX, The High def audio driver that came in the realtek driver install pak, is a microsoft driver.. or at least the name as it shows up in the device manager is "Microsoft High Definition audio blah blah dirver".

Do you have more ino on your sound drivers? At 900mhz, you should be able to play MP3's with no problems, but you cant run Vizualizations.. that would be very risky. I do not know what otehr apps and processes are on your system, but i would suggest looking for the latest drivers for your onboard audio hardware and try that first.

**Autonator** · 11-19-2006, 11:52 PM

Originally Posted by durwood

Is your problem with music or DVD's or everything audio related? Mine skips/choppy during DVD playback only because of the bandwidth issue on USB. I am using a soundblaster 24bit live USB. The resource usage is just too high a demand.

I never tried a DVD on my system except when it was on the test bench indoors.. Your situation seems more of a bottleneck issue. USB2.0 does have enough bandwdth to play a DVD.. what is your proc? i believe its a 1ghz? if you have one of those embedded procs by VIA, then i think that would be not enough to process DVD via USB due to several facts. I had a experience with a VIA 1ghz on a desktop PC at a friend of mine., and it did very hard work when we tried to install PowerDVD and run a DVD. Remeber that the DVD player software itself takes a lot of resources. You might get better performance if you hook teh DVD up via the IDE controller or the Serial ATA if you have one on your mobo. That would free teh system of going through the USB hardware layer and conversion.

do you have more details on your setup?

**durwood** · 11-20-2006, 07:54 AM

Ya you can check out my worklog by clicking on the Mazdaspeed6. I changed 2 things this year over my previous install. In my previous install I was running an IDE DVD drive directly connected to the IDE bus and I had a PCI soundcard. Now I have a USB DVD drive and a USB soundcard. The soundcard itself while playing MP3's uses about 20-40% CPU. I have two optinos at this point, try out a PCI USB add-on card, or revert back to my PCI soundcard. It shouldn't be the DVD drive because I know plenty of people are using them on a the mini-itx boards. I watch DVD's very rarely, so its not real high on my list of priorities but sooner or later I need to fix it.

**510SX** · 11-20-2006, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by Autonator

Do you have more ino on your sound drivers? At 900mhz, you should be able to play MP3's with no problems, but you cant run Vizualizations.. that would be very risky. I do not know what otehr apps and processes are on your system, but i would suggest looking for the latest drivers for your onboard audio hardware and try that first.

I don't run vizualization. My laptop has winxp sp1, froodoplayer, freedrive, and necessary microsoft component to run the program, that's about it. my CPU usage is around 20% and about 130M of ram used (I have 384M).
I am using audigy NX2 USB sound card. I downloaded the lastest driver and installed yesterday, it seemed got better. I am still hearing the imperfect sound once in awhile. The sound is like playing black plastic album (the static sound). I updated all the firmware and drivers last year, but I will look into the Dell website again tonight.

**durwood** · 11-20-2006, 10:22 PM

How are you suppling power to the Audigy NX? Maybe the external power isn't regulated enough for the NX.

**510SX** · 11-21-2006, 06:24 PM

Originally Posted by durwood

How are you suppling power to the Audigy NX? Maybe the external power isn't regulated enough for the NX.

Yes, I have a 12V to 5V 6A power supply. This box hanles all my 5V devices such as my USB hub, NX and my external DVD. These devices added up, takes about 5A.
How do you check if it's regulated enough?