mp3s hiccupping/jittery/skipping on XP?

[OMGWTFBBQ]

One of the users here who is constantly whining about shit on his computer - usually related to sound (sound is apparently crucial to getting work done for an accountant).

His current issue is that his mp3s are jittering/skipping on his machine.

The process is some Athlon 1ghz+ chip - don't recall exactly - but it is certainly plenty to play mp3s and have Excel open.

The CPU only ever gets up to 40%-50% at peaks and the RAM is only used up to 130MB of his 512MB.

It doesn't matter what software he uses to play the mp3s, they make that sound.
The mp3s themselves are supposedly actually perfect - I haven't tested this part out yet.

Any ideas on what makes it do that and/or how to fix it?

 

[CipherLock]

Can you up the priority in the mp3 software settings?

Killing him might reduce the number of complaints as well.

 

[the nature boy]

sound card perhaps?

 

[havoc]

Download the exact MP3's to your PC, if they skip like your friends then it be the MP3's, I say it's the MP3's, go ahead, tell me why I am wrong.

 

[from zero]

Play them on your machine. Maybe the doucheface downloaded fucked up mp3s. He does sound that stupid.

 

[CipherLock]

Defrag?
What are the processes in the background.
A 1gz chip on XP isn't blazing. Try turning to XP Classic mode and turn off all the shizazz that defaults on. Shading, menu highlighting, detail views.... tweakxp.com shit.

 

[OMGWTFBBQ]

I agree that the mp3s themselves might have issues - I don't have sound on my work computer, so I can't test them there.

He is sharing them with another guy in the office and they burned the mp3s themselves - the other guy doesn't seem to be having the issues.

I don't know if he is playing them off the network.

Usually these issues come up from either the hard drive being too heavily worked, too little RAM, or the processor is essentially clipping (over 100%) - but his machine is doing none of those things.

Adjusting settings for the visual stuff will reduce the CPU usage, but since it is only ever hitting 40% now - I'm not sure that is the issue.

The sound card very well might be the issue - these machines are fairly crappy.

 

[CipherLock]

Adjusting settings for the visual stuff will reduce the CPU usage, but since it is only ever hitting 40% now - I'm not sure that is the issue.

As much as I'd love to trust the task managers 'perfomance' graph, I never will.

If he is playing them off the network or off a fragged drive they'll jump. In winamp I believe there is a way to adjust the cache of the mp3. That could be an option?

 

[OMGWTFBBQ]

As much as I'd love to trust the task managers 'perfomance' graph, I never will.

If he is playing them off the network or off a fragged drive they'll jump. In winamp I believe there is a way to adjust the cache of the mp3. That could be an option?

He uses MusicMatch, don't know about the settings in there.
He comes to me and asks me if I gave him bad RAM - I tried to explain to him that there were many possible things wrong, but not the RAM.
I'm positive that if he ever fixes this, he will say it was the RAM.

This particular guy likes to ask me to do the dumbest shit and so I just ignore it. Then he fixes it himself and brags about it to everyone and acts like I don't know what I am doing - instead of that I just don't care.
But in this particular case, I must say I don't know.

The interior network is actually pretty fast - never had mp3 issues in here before - especially since it is all cached locally anyway when you do it that way - you would get long drop offs if it was the network, not little blipping jittery skipping sounds.

The hard drive might need defragging, but since he actually needs to get work done, I don't think I can do that one.

I told him that "I'd look into it" which means that I'm gonna ignore it.

 

[RaZor Ramon]

See if one of the MP3 plays on another comuper. If it does he may need to defrag his hard drive. If that doesn't help he may need to just reinstall windows. It sucks but sometimes it must be done.