Sound distortion in winamp

[Guest]

I have recently installed a second drive and moved my mp3's over to it. The
problem is when I play mp3's on that drive in winamp the sound distorts every
few seconds. This does not happen when I play mp3's in my local drive. Is
the problem a function of of the second drive and, if so, is there any way of
resovling it, rather than just putting all my music files on my local drive?

Thanks

 

[Chris Laarman]

Tonyv ([email protected]) in
(e-mail address removed):

I have recently installed a second drive and moved my mp3's over to
it. The problem is when I play mp3's on that drive in winamp the
sound distorts every few seconds. This does not happen when I play
mp3's in my local drive. Is the problem a function of of the second
drive and, if so, is there any way of resovling it, rather than just
putting all my music files on my local drive?

Looks like a symptom of a problem with that second drive, as if it can't
sustain the data transfer rate. But then I'd expect stuttering rather than
distortion.

Have a look at Control Panel | System | Hardware | Device_Manager. Do you
see anything abnormal there, yellow or red marks?
If that does not help you resolve your problem, it may be more fundamental.
Have this drive checked, starting with the connectors, then (assuming that
it is an ordinary drive in a desktop or tower case) the jumpers. The drive
may unintentionally share communication lines with another drive.

I can't help you any further, but I'd appreciate very much if you reported
to this newsgroup what cause was eventually found.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your response, Chris. I had an ethernet card I wasn't using
causing a bit of confusion in my hardware device manager, but now it's
uninstalled and all is clear in the device manager. However, this didn't
solve the problem.

I guess it is probably more of a stutter than distortion. I've also noticed
that the memory usage increases each time it stutters. Could there be
something in your initial suspicion of the data transfer rate?

 

[Chris Laarman]

Tonyv ([email protected]) in
(e-mail address removed):

Thanks for your response, Chris. I had an ethernet card I wasn't
using causing a bit of confusion in my hardware device manager, but
now it's uninstalled and all is clear in the device manager.
However, this didn't solve the problem.

I guess it is probably more of a stutter than distortion. I've also
noticed that the memory usage increases each time it stutters. Could
there be something in your initial suspicion of the data transfer
rate?

Well... it would take a Stone Age computer to have too low a transfer rate
of its own, so if it appears to have, something else must interfere. Hence
my thoughts on connections and jumpers.

Normally, I would have thought of codecs trouble, but that would be
indifferent to the drive used. In that case you might have one program play
correctly and another faultily.
That would pinpoint the problem, but I could not (yet) help you, as I have
not (yet) been able to solve my own problems in that field.
We *may* find help at http://www.updatexp.com/ : the Sherlock utility does
report codecs. Their tweaking (and order of invocation!) can be done (in XP)
through Contro Panel | Sounds_and_Audio_Devices | Hardware | (drop-down
list) | Audio_Codecs | Properties.

Good luck!

 

[Guest]

Sorted!

I had to go into advanced performance settings in MY Computer Properties and
change my paging file to the drive with the mp3's on.

The sherlock utility will come in handy though; I've already found a defunct
codec.

Thanks for all your help.

Tony