Problem with streaming video on Windows 7

pigface

Hi all,

Long problem description follows. I beg your indulgence.

I have a problem with streaming video on Windows 7 on my desktop PC with which I hope someone can help.

The symptoms are that, while watching a streamed video, the audio disappears for 2-3 seconds, while the video continues, after which the video freezes for the same duration while the audio returns. The audio and video are then again in sync until the next occurrence. The duration of the 

interruptions is always the same.

This can happen once or twice a minute, or once every minute or so. It's not consistent. As it happens, I am watching France vs. Germany on ARD TV and it had not happened for most of the game but is now occurring about once a minute although I have a single Opera window open, plus Task Manager and nothing else.

I am connected via wifi. I have run speed tests on my ISP connection and on my local wifi and the speeds are high. Everything else I do on the net works perfectly. Furthermore I can watch the same video, at the same location, on the same wifi connection on my (old Android) phone and on a Windows 7 laptop without any problem, as can my wife on both laptop and iPad. Videos stored on local disks work fine, too. I also moved house recently, and the problem is the same in the new setup as it was in the old one. I must conclude that the problem lies in the PC.

I am ashamed to admit that this has been an issue for about a year. I was using Chrome when the problem first arose, and switched to Opera as a test, but the symptoms are exactly the same.

This happens with various services. I am in Germany and I use YouTube, Sky, DAZN and various public German channels. Same problem with all of them.

PC is an old Dell Inspiron 545. Q9400 CPU, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7 64-bit. I have tried to update all the relevant drivers, such as video card etc. and I think I have all the current versions installed.

I should mention that I have done extensive searches on the net but failed to find any evidence of a similar problem. I have updated all suggested drivers, if such updates were available. Task Manager shows no unusual activity, nor does Event Viewer show any errors.

I'd be glad to hear any suggestions you may have.

Thanks,

Charles

Snags

Have Performance/Resource Monitor running to see if you're getting a disk bottleneck (although it doesn't  sound like that TBH). Sustained periods of "highest" at 100% (the blue one) or a queue that's consistently in double figures are both bad things.

Also, what type of WiFi? b, g, etc.?

Gizmo

My Bro had an issue like this and it strangely turned out to be just windows desktop slideshow changing his wallpaper every min or so i set it to a static background and it stopped....it was a bit maddening after running loads of virus/malware scans and driver updates ect ect lol

pigface

Thanks for the replies. @Snags I'll try that. Don't know what kind of WiFi but I'll have a look. @Gizmo I'll have a closer look at what may be running in the background.

Snags

If you want to get really hairy-chested about it, grab a copy of SysInternals "process explorer" and have that running to monitor in painful detail exactly what's doing what when.

I think my WiFi question is a distraction, to be honest. That the problem has followed you with a house move, and is confined to just one device does indicate it's most likely an issue with that specific device. Either a background task interfering, or just a poor interaction between NIC, video and audio sub-systems.

If you watch the same video, do you get the breaks in the same place, or does it vary?

There's one "it almost certainly isn't this" long shot as well - did you have the same ISP at both properties? And is it BT? And are you using the BT-supplied HomeHub? Because they're a) crap and b) can take offence at particular pieces of hardware for no logic reason.

pigface

@Snags I will indeed check out the process explorer. I'm not much of a Windows expert but before the Flood  I used to manage performance on mainframes so I have a bit of a clue. I suppose I was just hoping that someone else had seen the exact issue. Can't say if I have the problem in the same place in videos. I don't think so but I can do a bit of a test. And no, it's not BT because I'm in Germany :-) Thanks again for taking the time to help.

shuikit

I had a weird video playback issue years ago, ended up being the anti virus/security software I was running.  Found it by rebuilding my machine from scratch, issue went away, until I installed the anti virus, disabling it wasn't enough, it actually needed to be completely removed.

pigface

@shuikit I'll try that too. I only have MSE running but it could, of course, be that. Will maybe have some time on the weekend to have a proper look.