Computer geeks, please come in >>>

[Rolencode GTO]

Well my desktop finally took a crap so I am depending on my laptop now.

I have a Toshiba 1805-s254, 1GH, 256 mb memory, 35 gig HD etc...
When I try to watch a movie clip of a race or any other clips, it plays soooo slow, looks like its a slideshow instead of a clip. What do youguys think it is? Slow computer??

[LURCH]

Hey sad to see there is no reply to this.....

first things first have you restarted your computer? if that dosent work, go through the processes (ctrl+alt+del) and end any like aol that eat up alot of memory....

If that dosent work, try using another player (windows media, real, etc) if you have the same result its your computer, otherwise its probably your player.

LURCH

[Rome]

if all else fails find someone to reload it.

[LiqTenExp]

make sure you have the video card drivers loaded on it, to be safe go ahead and grab the latest version. you may have some sort of generic video card driver loaded which could cause the symptom you are talking about.

[bbroach]

Well my desktop finally took a crap so I am depending on my laptop now.

I have a Toshiba 1805-s254, 1GH, 256 mb memory, 35 gig HD etc...
When I try to watch a movie clip of a race or any other clips, it plays soooo slow, looks like its a slideshow instead of a clip. What do youguys think it is? Slow computer??

If you are running Windows XP, 256MB of ram is marginal for just about any task, let alone video playback. Your hard drive is also on the small side, so the page file that is trying to make up for the small memory is also a factor, and the one GHz processor is not helping. If you are streaming off the web, it will make all this even worse. If you can, upgrade to at least 512MB of RAM (one Meg would be better), and get a decent size (& speed) HD - say 80GB. This will improve things for just a couple hundred bucks - but we both know you need a newer machine.


regards, billb....

[LiqTenExp]

ive got a winxp machine p2 233 128 meg and it can do what he is attempting to do fine(dont use it anymore but its lying around here). Theres oviously just something out of place. I would look at the video card drivers first, try a different program second, and then under the task manager make sure there isnt a process other than your media player that is trying to steal processor time or system memory. You may have something running on your computer that is just hogging what little resources you have available.

[TheEricHarris]

Video related. I'm guessing Windows XP? Verify correct drivers are installed (Right click MY COMPUTER -> Manage -> Click Device Manager -> Verify you don't have any yellow icons - Make sure Display Adapters has your video card.

If that is fine, I'd make sure you screen resolution is using what your LCD can handle. You can play with that by going into Display Properties from Control Panel and going to the Settings tab.

[Pascale]

Probably outdated codecs. Run windows update and see if that changes anything.

[southpark460]

I'd go with the basics first. Full virus and spyware scan. Then launch Task Manager (CTRL-Shift-ESC, assuming XP or Win2k) and play your video. If CPU usage jumps to 100%, look at the processes that are monopolizing your processor. Like was said above, low memory will cause a lot of paging. Laptop drives are notoriously slow to begin with. Coupled with the fact that IDE drives start slowing down when they hit 50% utilization... Well, you see where it's going. :D