My turn for problems

[Midiman]

I've been doing a lot of diagnostics on my system trying to figure out what's going wrong. I've built a new system for myself in the living room now that my wife no longer inhabits the space. I've been updating a lot of the usual software and hardware I use and I began to run into some problems. The first thing I noticed was that iTunes plays back all my audio files... doesn't seem to matter whether they are mp3s or mp4s ripped from CDs... jerkily. It drops a beat here and there... no gaps, just missing, stuttering material. It happens nearly constantly. The mp3s play just fine in Winamp.

The next thing I noticed was that Windows Media Player was suddenly only playing the first 42 seconds on any given mpg file. These files USED to play just fine on the system. I've run into the problem on two other systems in my house as well so I figured it was something I was doing/installing.

I started poking around with Gspot and found that all the various codec options for mpeg-1 playback used a codec called MainConcept MPEG-1. I did a bit of research and discovered that, among other things, this codec is frequently installed with some Sony software. I had just installed Sound Forge 8 on this particular system which Sony aquired some time ago. I uninstalled it and all the mpg files played properly for a while. I started looking into possible causes for the iTunes playback problem and found (with Gspot) that there was some Nero codec in the mix for mp3 playback. I uninstalled Nero 6. It didn't help... so I reinstalled it .

iTunes still stutters my audio AND... now Windows Media Player will not play ANYTHING that's a video file. I get a 0xC00D1199: Cannot play the file error. It says the file is corrupt or the player does not support the format. The files are not corrupt, they play fine in other players. Gspot reports all the necessary codecs are installed. The windows system tool reports all the proper codecs are installed. Doesn't matter what kind of video file it is... AVI (pure, divx or xvid), mpeg-1... no video files. It will play mp3s... oddly just like iTunes... jerky. The visualizer works on audio files as well.

I've reinstalled WMP 9 (using Window 2000 pro so 9 is as high as I can go)... no improvement. I've never seen this before and I'm finally stymied.

[Midiman]

Addendum: Since I haven't tried it since the onset of all these problems, I had a go at converting one of the mpeg videos that WMP claims is corrupt or unsupported... it converts fine in the Videora converter despite the fact that it can't be played in WMP.

[msopnet]

I've never had Windows 2000, but when I've had problems like that, I check to see all the video/audio codecs installed. You may find some obvious ones that shouldn't be installed. When I get home, I'll give you a list of all the codecs I have (Audio and Video).

The list is at: Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices -> (Audio,Video) Codecs
Click on Properties, then the Properties tab

Hopefully it's in the same place on 2k.

Also, after a fresh install of Windows XP, I only install SLD Codec Pack and I've never found a video I couldn't play. I do install Nero, but just for CD Burning - none of their codecs.

Will get back to you later. Good luck.

[Midiman]

It's in a slightly different place in 2000... in the device manager under sound and video controllers... but everything that's supposed to be there is there. I don't seem to get any options when I install Nero 6. It's an all or nothing affair. I just tried a complete uninstall of WMP9... which rolled me back to WMP6.4 which wouldn't play any of these files either. Then I reinstalled WMP9... same results. It's odd that the windows audio and video codec screens only show you about a dozen codecs each and yet Gspot reports 167 installed... but that's normal. Gspot reports that all these files have the proper codecs installed... and Gspot will play them all fine.

[msopnet]

So, everything works except that Windows Media Player plays nothing and iTunes stutters?

Have you tried using mplayer2 (from Start->Run...->mplayer2.exe)?

[Midiman]

Yeah... MP 6.4 was what I was left with after initially uninstalling 9... it comes up, even after reinstalling 9 with "No combination of filters could be found to render the stream." MP 9 plays audio the same way iTunes does... but the audio plays fine in Winamp... which I also tried uninstalling.

I just tried reinstalling the xvid codec and playing a movie I know was encoded with xvid... same results.

Also just tried reinstalling the Window Media 9 codec pack... no change.

WinDVD plays all the divx, xvid and mpeg-1 files fine

DivX Player plays all the divx and xvid files fine.

I can't believe I'm gonna have to scrub this system and rebuild from windows up AGAIN. I almost had it where I wanted it when a power outage took out the unbacked up hard drive. It's taken me two weeks to rebuild after that and now this. I'm pretty much fed up with computers.

[msopnet]

Maybe it has something to do with the new computer's sound device for the stuttering; if one of these fixes work, maybe it'll give some insight into what's wrong with the rest of the problems:

http://www.gordonmclean.co.uk/index.php/archives/2006/12/06/how-to-fix-itunes-stutter

[Midiman]

Didn't seem to do anything. One other change in my system was moving from an IDE to an SATA hard drive system. Ever since doing that, the system seems to do this ridiculously high intensity read/write for about 30 seconds... every 30 or 40 minutes... during which I can barely move my mouse cursor. All very weird.

The sound system is nothing fancy... a SoundBlaster Live card with a pair of Bose MediaMates running off it. Winamp (which I believe uses it's own internal Nullsoft codec) plays mp3s just fine...

[Sketch]

<--- foobar2000 user ;)

Assuming drivers/WMP/iTunes are all up-to-date?

[Midiman]

Yep........

[electric shepherd]

Sounds like a similar problem I had some time ago. I asked on the Apple forum and was told to uninstall the primary IDE driver then reboot, XP will then reinstall it automatically. It worked like a dream for me.

Details here: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=351805&start=0&tstart=0

[Midiman]

Yeah, thanks. I've played with all the IDE settings.. even tried uninstalling that hardware. The stuttering problem only started when I installed and enabled a pair of SATA drives.. I had previously been using IDE's. Any time i hear this type of stuttering I immediately suspect PIO mode. I'm beginning to suspect that the problem is native to the motherboard and that it's not connected to WMP's inability to play any type of video file. I'll use this system until I get my iTunes library back in shape (it was killed in the hard drive crash three weeks ago) and then I'll export the library to a few DVDs... and export the computer to the trash heap. I have a bigger P4/2.8HT Dell in the back room anyway. I AM mystified by the fact that the mp3s all play fine in Winamp though....

[Sketch]

Is there anything you can do in your BIOS to re-optimize IRQ settings? I wonder if the sound card is in conflict with the new hard drives.