mp3s skipping

[soundtest]

i've got a 20GB secondary drive in my PC that is filled with only mp3s. whenever i play files from the drive, they stutter and slightly skip a bit. the mp3s i put there were fine to begin with, and i know they haven't been corrupted because if i copy them from the 20GB drive (F:) and paste them on my C: drive or ipod, they play back fine. i'm thinking it might be a bad IDE cable or something? they're both NTFS if that matters at all. anybody ever encounter this before?

[pjalne]

If could help if you increase the buffer size in WinAMP or whatever program you use.

[soundtest]

didn't help at all :(

[the_dudefather]

ar you using a dial up modem? for some reason that caused sound on my pc to do the same effects that you described

[soundtest]

I haven't used a dial-up modem for years, but i know the sound you're talking about. It's similar to that but far more subtle, yet equally as annoying. This problem only occurs when files are played back from this particular hard drive. When the same files are copied to another destination, they play fine. I tried defragmented the drive, but that didn't do any good either. I've got another IDE cable around here somewhere so i'm going to give that a shot.

[executioneer]

is it jumpered right :(

[MetalMilitia]

Defrag? :/

[Alive]

Check for programs running in the background like "seti @home" (if you have it) or virus scanners (anti virus programs) the more stuff running in the background =less system resources for more demanding apps (wmp, multimedia-games ect.)

[soundtest]

is it jumpered right :(

I would assume so. Would it even function if it wasn't? I'm gonna definitely double check this though... I'm just so lazy when it comes to opening up the tower... I'll put it off as long as possible. :sleep

Defrag? :/

...to another destination, they play fine. I tried defragmenting the drive, but that didn't do any good either. I've got another IDE...

Check for programs running in the background like "seti @home" (if you have it) or virus scanners (anti virus programs) the more stuff running in the background =less system resources for more demanding apps (wmp, multimedia-games ect.)

Thanks Alive! That really worked! :rolleyes

[executioneer]

i think i remember having performance issues only when it was not jumpered right, maybe it was from having both drives set to master :/

[soundtest]

Opened it up and the jumper was set correctly. :( I decided to try every other combination anyway just for fun and, not surprisingly, it still didn't help. Swapped IDE cables, still the same problem. I'm ready to accept that this drive is just a piece of shit.

[MetalMilitia]

What kind of drive is it? something pulled out of an old POS pc?

[AChimp]

The drive is probably slower than your main drive. As far as I know, as well, slave drives run slower than master drives because they are sharing the same IDE channel. Your main HD is still being accessed while Winamp is playing the MP3, and if you don't have a lot of RAM, there will be more disk accesses. :(

[Alive]

It basicly comes down to a data access problem, it very well may be that the drive you have your mp3's on is maxed out to capacity and windows likes to have a few megs left over to work with when it comes to virtual memory and read/write functions.

[soundtest]

Alive: No.

AChimp: If that were the case, wouldn't the problem only occur if my computer was doing system demanding tasks? I really doubt that this is an issue with resources. My computer is by no means top shit, but this issue occurs all the time, and always the same way (no varying degrees).

I'm doing the XP "Disk Checker" thing now (is this just Scan Disk?) and it's taking forever. Not that I think this will really tell me anything useful.

[Ninjavenom]

Try adding more RAM. I had a similar problem until i added more (128 + 128) and upgraded from win98.

[AChimp]

Yeah, you'd expect something like that to only happen when you're running lots of stuff... RAM might be the problem like Ninja said. :(

[Dulled by Excess]

If you're able to play mp3's from your primary drive, adding more RAM isn't likely to be the solution. Adding more RAM is still never a bad idea, though. How do you currently have the drive set up (Primary Slave, Secondary Master/Slave)? Do you know the drive's specs (speed, cache)? How old is this drive? Was the problem fixed earlier by closing TSR's and background apps? What did the XP Disk Checker find (it's most likely running chkdsk)? Any bad sectors?

"Back in the day", mp3 playback was considered extremely resource-intensive, but if your machine is anywhere near recent, you shouldn't have any problems playing mp3's. Likewise, if your machine runs windows XP and has at least 128MB RAM (although I wouldn't recommend anything less than 256MB), you shouldn't have any problems playing mp3's.

[MetalMilitia]

Move all the MP3s onto another HDD -> Do a low level format of the 20gig -> move them back.

That might do it. :/

[soundtest]

It's the Secondary Master in my system. The drive is a 20GB QUANTUM FIREBALL. It's not super new, and I see what you're saying, but this isn't a 2GB relic from the Pentium II days. This drive should not be struggling with .mp3 playback. Background apps have nothing to do with this problem, and Windows did not find any errors on the drive. Again, I don't see how RAM would be an issue if the same files play back fine from the other drive. I'll get around to formatting the drive eventually, but my other drive doesn't have enough space for all 20GB, so it won't be anytime soon. :(

[MetalMilitia]

I expect you could save a few GB by RARing up the albums. Or you could use this as an excuse to buy yourself a nice new 20gb IPOD (or similar mp3 player) and use that for temp storage while you format.

or...
You could download sisoft saundra (sp?), i believe that has utilities for testing HDD speed etc. It also gives you tips on how to improve performace which might help. :/

[Dulled by Excess]

Hmm...

I have my doubts as to how much you'd be able to compress mp3's. You're right, though, in that you shouldn't have a problem playing mp3's from that drive at all. If you have a CD-RW drive and a spindle o' CD's, you could always just back them up to CD and try reformatting. If you don't have a CD-RW drive, well, fortunately they're relatively affordable. For what it's worth, I too have a Quantum Fireball 20GB drive (or, in my case, had) that held all of my emulators and ROMs. It has since died, and has been reduced to nothing more than a shiny paperweight. Ever since that fiasco, I have come to the conclusion that Quantum drives are a useless waste of cash (and while I'm at it, be wary of purchasing Maxtor drives, you may end up with a Quantum drive instead). If you haven't backed up your mp3 collection, I'd do so ASAP.

[executioneer]

I expect you could save a few GB by RARing up the albums. Or you could use this as an excuse to buy yourself a nice new 20gb IPOD (or similar mp3 player) and use that for temp storage while you format.

or...
You could download sisoft saundra (sp?), i believe that has utilities for testing HDD speed etc. It also gives you tips on how to improve performace which might help. :/

sisoft sandra

[whoreable]

maybe run quantum/maxtor drive diagnostics.

pretty sure xp enables dma and write caching automatically, so that probaly wont help, but you can check in device manager

sorry i didnt read much else so i might have missed if you tried these things.

[Mad Melvin]

Have you tried playing the Mp3s with any other program than Winamp? What version is your winamp? Winamp 5 uses a lot more RAM than the previous versions, so you might want to try an older one.

[whoreable]

then why would they work on his primary hdd?

are there any other devices on the same cable as that drive?

[Alive]

You sharing out that drive/folder of music with, lets say kazaa or another p2p?

[soundtest]

It's the only device connected to it. I was thinking of replacing it as the slave on my Primary IDE... could it be my Secondary is slightly fucked?

I've tried Winamp 2.x, Winamp 5, and iTunes, but as whoreable said, if that were the case, they would stutter when played from the primary drive as well.

I'm sharing this drive on my LAN and that's it. This problem occurred before it was shared though...

[executioneer]

hell i am stumped :/ yeah i would try slaving it to your primary and see fi that helps ::(

[executioneer]

How do I stop Winamp from skipping when playing MP3 files?

There may be various causes, and some may be difficult to get around (e.g. some video drivers conflict with audio output in some circumstances, as do some modem operations, and these problems may be hard to fix, other than by updating your device drivers). Here are a few suggestions...

3) If you have more than one hard disk, make sure your using the fastest one for Windows virtual memory - this can make a *lot* of difference. Windows will default to using the c: drive usually, but if you've installed a second hard drive later it will probably be faster, and using it for your virtual memory instead will give you better performance. Go to Control Panel / System and select the Performance tab, then press the Virtual Memory button, and do Manual Configuration.

4) Go to www.winamp.com and download the Nullsoft Cross-fading Plugin (Experimental). I believe it can be found under both "Best plugins" and "Output plugins". Despite its name, crossfading (bringing a new song up as the previous one dies away, rather than having a gap in between) is only one feature of this plugin (and oddly enough, despite the name, the cross-fading feature is turned off by default). It seems to do a bet job of managing output than the standard Nullsoft Wave Out plugin, and it gives you more control - if you select it as your Output plugin under Preferences and then press the Configure button, it allows you to set the buffer size, the thread priority, the pre-buffering percentage and the block-size. Actually the default values seem to work well... but if you still have skipping problems, tinkering with these parameters should help. Also, if you actually want the cross-fading feature (which I kind of like myself - it fades from song to song on the playlist rather as a radio station would in a song set), turn it on by checking the "No gaps on stop or next" box in the configuration window.


1) Increase Winamp's execution priorities and buffering. Start Winamp and go to Preferences (Ctrl-P). Select Options at the left, then increase Winamp's overall process priority by moving the slider at the bottom towards the right, setting it to "High" or "Realtime". Still in Winamp Preferences, select Output on the left then press the Configure button - you should see sliders that will allow you to increase both the priority and the buffering of the output plugin. Now, still in Preferences, select Input on the left, and select Nullsoft MPEG Audio Decoder on the right, then press the Configure button - set the priority using the slider on the General tab (this should normally be set to "Highest").



snipped a few bits from a huge .mp3 FAQ :/

probably not helpful but idk

[whoreable]

my best bet is still to run the manufacturers hdd diagnoatics

[soundtest]

The same thing happens in iTunes and Windows Media Player, so I don't think it's a Winamp specific problem. The info you found (thanks btw Willie :) ) made me think it might be a virtual memory issue for the F: drive so I increased its virtual memory to 500Mb (from nothing, it was all allocated to the C: drive before). Still no improvement. :(

I downloaded a utility for Quantum/Maxtor drives that will check disk integrity, so I guess I'll give that a shot. It demands that I have a formatted floppy disk in the drive before launching, and I haven't used a floppy disk in like 2 years, so I'll have to wait until I find one. What would a utility like this do though, whoreable? Will it just tell me if the drive is messed or can it actually repair it?

The only other 2 things I can really think of are switch it to the primary IDE bus or format it.

POS drive >:

[Dulled by Excess]

If the drive is suffering from a case of physical damage, then you might just be S.O.L. If the utility finds bad sectors or the like, the most it can do to "fix" the problem is mark the sectors as bad so they're no longer written to. :(