Why is Windows Media Player distorting?
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URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=97193
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Topic: Why is Windows Media Player distorting?
Posted By: knet94
Subject: Why is Windows Media Player distorting?
Date Posted: 26 November 2016 at 6:29pm
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For ease sometimes I just set up a playlist in WMP and play it at random. Lately I've noticed that after a while it starts to distort and I have to restart the computer. This has happened on 3 different computers. Any ideas? |
Replies:
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 26 November 2016 at 7:15pm
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Are you using built in sound card or external? ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: Sypa
Date Posted: 26 November 2016 at 7:42pm
Question is why are you using windows media player?  http://www.foobar2000.org/download |
Posted By: nickyburnell
Date Posted: 26 November 2016 at 11:16pm
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Or VLC Media Player.. Suspect the, "onboard software inbuilt sound" is stealing too much ram and/or cpu over time? Lev?? ------------- It's everything, not everythink! |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 26 November 2016 at 11:33pm
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Which version of Windows Ken? Try £10 usb key sound card, see if it works better. ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 27 November 2016 at 12:35pm
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Lev, I'm using external sound cards. Operating system is Windows 10. I have 3 external sound cards. @ Sypa only use it for convenience. @ nicky I do also have VLC which I am using now and will monitor the situation. Your explanation sounds the most feasible so far. |
Posted By: odc04r
Date Posted: 27 November 2016 at 1:04pm
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Worth watching the windows task manager (ctrl-alt-del and task manager) when it is happening. If there is any process that begins to take a lot of CPU time or RAM it could be your cuplrit. Another thing to check is any AV s/w entering a scheduled scan or any s/w running an update in the background you can't see. |
Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 27 November 2016 at 2:14pm
| Yeah did try that but didn't see anything obvious. |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 27 November 2016 at 2:57pm
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Ken, what is machine make/model, CPU, Mem size, Hard disk size, age of machine? Is Bios up to date? ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 27 November 2016 at 7:48pm
| Remember this happening on 3 different machines and 3 different soundcards. The one that I am using this moment is quite old, perhaps 5 years. It's a HP 2.4ghz with 4 gig of RAM. CPU isss AMD Athlon and there's 1tb hard drive. The updates are always applied. That's all the info i have. |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 27 November 2016 at 8:39pm
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Could be ancient sound hardware, wrestling with Windows 10. Grab yourself a used £150 Dell E6420 laptop with Core I5 CPU, 4Gb Ram & Windows 7 COA. Update to latest Bios. Upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Sure your problems would disappear. ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 27 November 2016 at 10:19pm
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Thanks for the advice Lev but this machine was upgraded from Windows 7. The other 2 machines are newer HP laptops upgraded from Windows 8 with newer external sound cards. These exhibit the same problem when listening for long periods. |
Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 28 November 2016 at 11:13pm
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Well guys I ran a Norton full system scan. It found and dealt with16 threats. Been playing WMP for over 5 hours and things still cool. No distortion. I couldn't get on with VLC. Every time I tried to add extra tracks to my playlist it just kept launching a new instance of VLC. Probably a simple setting but haven't got the patience to look for it. |
Posted By: Teunos
Date Posted: 29 November 2016 at 5:56am
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Yeah, not sure why anyone would suggest vlc tbh. Best video player out there imo but worthless for making playlists. I highly recommend foobar for overall media player. Will play any file you throw at it, super easy to configure playlists and most importantly the search function is incredibly fast! But the reason i like it most, is the freely configurable dsp you can add as well as selection of output source etc (i tend to switch a lot) from onboard,external soundcard (multiple), dante virtual soundcard as well as dante via. No switching back to anything else for me in the near future. Ow, and did i say its lovely to be able to do a soundcheck with pre recorded music and being able to walk the crowd area skipping through the tracks using my iphone and/or ipad  ------------- Best regards, Teun. |
Posted By: odc04r
Date Posted: 29 November 2016 at 12:05pm
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Indeed VLC is good s/w, but I would never use it for gigging. Playlists are a possibility. Light use, video files, and sometimes transcoding files are it's strengths. Also highly customisable AV playback via many plugins - effects and filters if setting up the perfect AV experience is your thing. Even then there may be better. You can right click a file and select add to VLC playlist to stop it launching a new instance of the software. Best modern media player is probably foobar as recommended. My favourite was always Winamp classic but it doesn't play so well with modern versions of windows. |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 29 November 2016 at 12:42pm
Oh dear Ken, was assuming you had security all locked down..  Personally don't use Windows to browse web any more, but when I did, always had Kaspersky Internet Security.  ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |
knet94 wrote:Posted By: knet94
Date Posted: 29 November 2016 at 6:45pm
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Thanks guys. Lev I thought my security was tight. My Norton is always on and checks every new programs downloaded and tells me wether they are safe or not. Also it quick scans at least twice a day. So not sure how the 16 threats got in. But the full scan dealt with them so all good. Tuen, some very good advice and plenty of food for thought. odc0r4 I thought I made it clear that this was just lazy listening at home. Would never use WMP or VLC for gigging. The right mouse click and add to VLC playlist was precisely what I was doing. |
Posted By: nickyburnell
Date Posted: 29 November 2016 at 7:08pm
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When Norton is due for renewal go to: http://www.eset.co.uk/" rel="nofollow - http://www.eset.co.uk/ ------------- It's everything, not everythink! |
Posted By: odc04r
Date Posted: 29 November 2016 at 7:35pm
Sorry, wasn't paying enough attention to what you wrote before. You probably got nasties via javascript/browser exploits. I'd bet it is the most common method of infection going these days. Keep everything up to data including flash/java plugins and consider maybe using noscript as a browser addon perhaps. No idea why the right click + play in VLC/add file is not behaving for you unless something has changed in the latest release. |
Posted By: levyte357-
Date Posted: 29 November 2016 at 8:54pm
Noscript is my fav FF plugin of all time. Is only reason I still use FF over Chrome. That and the phone home privacy shenanigans.  ------------- Global Depopulation - Alive and Killing. |