Need Computer Expertise

[u84]

So, I got a brand new laptop about a year ago, an hp ProBook with intel Core i3, Windows 7 and an on-board graphics card. About 4 months ago, something went askew. Whenever I play a movie, a song or any game with sound (aka FFR), the whole computer jerks every 30 seconds or so. It's difficult to explain, but for instance: playing FFR. I will go along fine for a bit and then this jerking happens, the speakers make the sound they'd make if your song froze in the middle (I hope that makes sense) and basically the whole song is delayed a couple fractions of a second. It makes playing FFR impossible. Does anyone have any idea how to combat this?

TL;DR: My sound and any game with it gets delayed a fraction of a second once in a while and I can't fix it.

[xVaLoRx]

Try updating the drivers for your sound card. That can usually fix problems that seem to come out of nowhere.

[u84]

Originally Posted by xVaLoRx

Try updating the drivers for your sound card. That can usually fix problems that seem to come out of nowhere.

How do I go about doing that?

[xVaLoRx]

Search for "dxdiag" from your start menu and run it. It will tell you what kind of sound card and what version of the drivers you have for your specific sound card. To update them, go to the website of the manufacturer of your sound card and you can most likely find a link for newer drivers for your sound card (if there are any).

If dxdiag is saying that you just have a "High Definition Audio Device", then you will have to right click on "My Computer" in the start menu and click on "properties". From there, there should be an option on the left that says "Device Manager". Then, go to "Sound, video and game controllers" and you should find "High Definition Audio Device" again. Right click and select "Update Driver Software" from the drop down menu and that should help.

The second option might be faster even if you can see a specific sound card installed in dxdiag, but I always preferred to update with the first option. Hope this helps

[who_cares973]

Try unplugging it and plugging it in again

[u84]

I tried all of the above, even who_cares, haha. But, alas it still skips, same as before.. I'm gonna get eliminated from the tournament because of this, haha!

[Calcium Deposit]

If you remember, what were you doing that may have caused the issue?

Best advice I can give right now is to completely reinstall windows if you're desperate enough.

[emerald000]

Here are some things to try (in no particular order):

- Update graphic card drivers.

- Open your game or whatever that causes this problem and open beside it the task manager. Order by cpu used and look at the most intensive programs. Recreate the lag in your game and see if some program is taking your whole cpu for a couple of seconds when this happen.

- Desactivate your anti-virus.

- Scan your computer with an anti-virus and an anti-malware (I recommend Avast and Spybot - Search & Destroy.

- Try Game Booster. No games on my Vista machine are playable without that running.

- Press Windows + R and enter "msconfig". In the tabs "Services" and "Startup", you will see a load of stuff that is loaded into your computer once it boots. Try disactivating a couple at a time, reboot and see if that fixes it. Try to pin it down to a single one, by reactivating some when it does work. If you removed everything you can and it still doesn't work, then welp.

- If your computer is somewhat decent, especially RAM-wise, you can try playing FFR from a Live CD. Download Ubuntu Live CD. Burn it to a CD or upload it to a USB key (instructions are on that page) and boot from it. If nothing special happens when you reboot with the CD or USB key in, you will have to change your boot order in your bios. At the very first (or sometimes second) screen you see when you boot your computer look for a message like: "Press {key} for setup/bios/options/synonym". It usually is one of the F1-F12 keys, but it is sometimes another random key. Look for boot order options and change it so your CD drive (or usb slots) are booted before your hard disk.

- Find a friend and play at his house. You shouldn't need a really good score to pass first round (with inactives and all), so that will give you another week to find a fix.

- Format your hard drive and reinstall your OS. This really is a last resort thing and I hope you won't have to go to there.

If you have any questions about something I said, I will be around for a while to answer them.

[ELRayford]

msconfig to remove unwanted startup items and services Clean out your fan with can air backup data then factory restore

[dAnceguy117]

there's not a whole lot to try other than updating video/sound drivers. reformatting can be a royal pain, but that would pretty much cover any software issues. if you've got a hardware problem, that could be a lot tougher to fix on your own.

[cedolad]

I'm smelling a hardware failure here. Do you know if your sound card is on-board?

[ELRayford]

If factory restore doesn't fix it then you can call it hardware. Running a PC repair store for 10+ years I have seen all kinds of "odd" errors like this. Just eliminate all the software possibilities and hopefully you find the fix soon. Make sure you check that your fan is spinning and that you can feel a warm air flow coming out. If not clean it. Also, look in task manager when your system is idle and see if anything is polling the CPU (after the sound failure)

Originally Posted by cedolad

I'm smelling a hardware failure here. Do you know if your sound card is on-board?

Most HP laptops are integrated sound. Especially i3's

[JD_Flava]

Try to reinstall Flash Player.