Audio playback freeze followed by Graphics sysc issue

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by SamRinaldi

Since my upgrade to Video Hoster 4.XXX currently 4.09d I have been having audio freeze issues followed by an out of sync Lyrics to the music. I have followed the upgrade and FAQ resolutions as closely as I can and can't seem to resolve this issue. I hope someone can help.

HP nc8000 Laptop 1.6 Ghz Pentium M, 1 Gig of RAM 120 GB Hd with more than 30% free space. I use a Creative Labs Soundblaster USB to RCA external sound device. I send second monitor video to a TV using the svideo port. Current Windows updates to MTU specs, Power settings according to MTU specs "Always On", Video properties set according to MTU specs (16bit Color and widows effects settings), DirectX 9.0c Sound Hardware Acceleration set to Basic, Built in ATI Video Card with 64meg of Video memory.

You didn't mention whether you are using Vista or XP.

The unfortunate thing about laptops is that most use shared memory instead of dedicated memory for the on-board video card. This can caause a conflict if there isn't enough memory available for all the functions running.
Do you have any other programs running at the same time such as Anti-virus or a DJ program? These can also eat up memory space.
Have you defragmented your hard drive lately? The more fragmented the files the slower the file is going to run.
Is your USB port for the sound card version 1 or 2? If it is a 1 then the transfer speed is slower and may cause it to freeze.
That is all I am going to mention for now. There are a couple of other tricks that can help, but I'll wait until you check on these items first.

[SamRinaldi]

I am using XPPRO and the USB port for my Soundblaster is 2.0 I also Defrag the hard drive on a regular basis in addition to when I make data changes of add or delete files.

I think you may be on to something with the shared memory on the laptop with my Video card. I have 1 gig and can expand the laptop to 3 gigs max and think I will look into that.

I have used PCDJ Red dj software in the past with Hoster but since this issue I have stopped running that at the same time as Hoster. I was wondering if there are any settings on the ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 video graphics card that could help.

As I mentioned I have gone through the forum threads and FAQs and think I have found all the sugested changes but I would love to know if there are any other tricks I can do with the system. I am hoping that I don't have to invest in a new laptop so whatever you could suggest would be great.

[madjim- with the Lord]

Sam,
Check out this web site:

http://www.blackviper.com/

They give very good advice on tweaking and operating system to get the most out of it.

I hope this helps.

Jim

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by SamRinaldi

I think you may be on to something with the shared memory on the laptop with my Video card. I have 1 gig and can expand the laptop to 3 gigs max and think I will look into that.

If it will take the expansion then yes I would highly recommend taking it up to 2GB. For XP anything beyond that won't help as XP is limited.
I would do this before you jump to blackviper and try any of those tips. Their thing is to turn off processes running in the background that may or may not be needed. This is a trial and error process to figure out what you can and can't turn off.
Bryant is right that 64MB is extremely small, but since you are not having any video glitches, I don't think this is the problem, but that the lower amount of memory because of it is causing the audio drop-outs.

[SamRinaldi]

Thank you to all for the help. This is truly and great support community and I will intend to participate more often.


Because the Video Graphics card is built into the Laptop I have been told that I can not increase that RAM without replacing the laptop.



I will look to increase the RAM to 2 gigs and see if that helps solve the issue and provide feedback after I have tested.