Playback surges on htpc

[joblo37pam]

I tried searching for similar problems, but couldn't find anything, so if this has been posted/answered, please forgive me.


System Specs:
600 mhz Celeron
Intel 815AA mobo
384 mb pc100
SB Live! Value Using spdif to home theater
Geforce 2MX 200 w/svid
Maxtor 160GB 8mb cache HD
(basically parts I had sitting around not doing anything)

My htpc is for playback of mp3's and divx/xvid encoded movies. It's not a beast at all, but it does it's job. At least mostly. Lately I've been having problems with it surging during movies (playback speeds up for a second or so). It never did this before.

It's been built xp the whole time, but has been rebuilt a few times for some configuration changes. Cpu usage never goes much above 50% during playback, so I don't think that's a problem. I've tried different video drivers, with no success. I suspected that it may be the creative drivers since i was using the hacked Audigy drivers, but I tried uninstalling those and just installing the regular Live drivers, but that didn't seem to help. I suppose it could be remnants of the old drivers hanging around since it's almost impossible to get rid of creative drivers. I'm not sure that's the problem though. DMA is enabled on all drives.

It's just kind of confusing, because it never used to happen, and the same movies play fine on my other machines. Anyway, this post is long enough. I'd appreciate if anyone had some suggestions. Thanks

[Sirber]

a nice and clean format could help :D

[joblo37pam]

Originally posted by joblo37pam
but has been rebuilt a few times

See that's just the thing, I figured that would fix it, too, but it didn't. Maybe I did the same thing twice in a row though. I'll try it again this weekend. Come to think of it, I think I used the hacked Audigy drivers for both rebuilds, I think I'll try it with just the regular Live drivers this time. Any other suggestions before I blow it away?

[Emp3r0r]

My brother has similar problems as you. Are you using the built in MPEG2 decoder that comes with Windows Media Player Classic. I think this may be cause. I haven't had a chance to try a different Mpeg2 decoder. Do you have problems with all video files?

[joblo37pam]

I rebuilt over the weekend a couple of times, and finally got things running right. I don't know why it is different, because I didn't really change anything, but I'm going to make sure and grab a ghost image of it as is before I mess it up again. I was using WM9 for playback but also tried Divx Player. WM classic was going to be my next try. Thanks for your help guys. I'll be sure to let you know if I have any more problems.