Windows 7 - YouTube Videos Choppy

jmurray01

jmurray01

Member
Hi guys,

Jamie again! Don't worry, I am not here to talk about that ancient Compaq Presario again - it met a rather violent end about a month ago when I had enough of it and let my anger out...

I've since dug a bit deeper into my wallet and replaced it with a Hewlett-Packard ProBook 4515s which has Windows 7 Professional installed and pretty good specs (I'll attach a screen shot of Speccy so you can see in detail).

Now, the only problem that I have come across with the laptop is that YouTube videos are very choppy. They play OK in anything up to 480p but when I try to play various different videos in 720p (60fps) it will barely play at all. The audio comes through fine, but the picture just freezes every few seconds and is unwatchable. Of course, 1080p is even worse.

Initially I thought it was maybe because it only has 2gb of RAM, but then I realised that even my Dell Optiplex 760 USFF desktop which is running WINDOWS VISTA for goodness' sake has the same amount of RAM and plays 720p/60fps videos just fine. It can go from start to finish without freezing once.

I've tried clearing the cookies/cache, using different browsers, using "private mode" on browsers, using it plugged in and running on battery, but nothing makes any difference! It goes without saying that Adobe Flash is updated to the most recent version.

I'm getting to the end of my tether now as I have finally found a laptop which works and I enjoy using, only to find that I cannot watch high quality YouTube videos with it.

Please help!

Jamie.
 

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Pretty good specs? How did you come up with that? It has only 2 gb of ram and a single core processor. You should have at least 4gb of ram and a dual core processor. Do you latest video driver?
 
Well it has no problems running any other programmes and for day-to-day use I do think they are decent specs. Maybe I'm wrong though.

Yes the video drivers are all up to date.
 
Could be anywhere from a bad video card, corrupt flash player. Do you have a different video card you can try?
 
I'd view the cpu utilization graph while trying to watch, it probably says 100%. That cpu didn't have much capacity even when it was new..
 
beers said:
I'd view the cpu utilization graph while trying to watch, it probably says 100%. That cpu didn't have much capacity even when it was new..
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You know what, you are right - the CPU is maxing out. It just doesn't have any more to give, plain and simple. The RAM isn't even going above 70%, so although 2GB may not be much it certainly isn't the issue here.

I think my next laptop purchase (although it will be at least 6 months away due to finances) will be one with an Intel processor. I've never had good experiences with AMD. Not that they have died or anything, just with them being poor performers when it comes to things like this (HD videos). The desktop I made reference to has an Intel Pentium E5200 and as I said, that thing can play 1080p videos all day long without problem despite only having 2GB of ram and running Vista.
 
jmurray01 said:
I've never had good experiences with AMD. Not that they have died or anything, just with them being poor performers when it comes to things like this (HD videos).
Click to expand...

I think this is more of a 'this laptop was already super-low-end when it came out in 6 years ago anyway' situation than an AMD one ;)
 
beers said:
I think this is more of a 'this laptop was already super-low-end when it came out in 6 years ago anyway' situation than an AMD one ;)
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Or that!! :D

Ah well, it works fine playing 480p so I'll just live with it like that for now. After all there are no other problems to speak of. At some point next year I'll spend £300/$460 on a decent high spec laptop.
 
Well, problem solved! The solution? I gave the Hewlett-Packard to my mother as she only uses computers for emails and Facebook and bought another laptop from a local seller on Gumtree.

The new model is an Acer Aspire 5349 which has the following specs:

O/S: Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU: Intel B815
Screen: 15.6" HD LED LCD
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics
RAM: 2GB DDR3 Memory
HDD: 320 GB HDD
Optical: DVD-Super Multi DL drive
WiFi: Acer Nplify 802.11b/g/n
Battery: 6-cell Li-ion battery

Yeah, it isn't exactly "top of the line" either, but the processor is better (dual core) and it has a much larger HDD.

The only problem I had initially when I got it and set up Windows 7 was with - surprise surprise - Internet Explorer! It seemed to know that I was ONLY going to use it to install Firefox and insisted on crashing repeatedly and not letting me get to the Mozilla website. I eventually got there and since sticking IE where the sun don't shine and switching to Firefox there have been no problems. It runs like a dream and most importantly - plays High Definition YouTube videos without a second of hesitation!!

I'm delighted.
 
Since you are using Firefox give the addon YouTube All HTML5 a try. This will force YouTube to play in HTML5 and not jacked up Flash which is more CPU demanding. Try it on the other laptop too and see what happens!
 
Agent Smith said:
Since you are using Firefox give the addon YouTube All HTML5 a try. This will force YouTube to play in HTML5 and not jacked up Flash which is more CPU demanding. Try it on the other laptop too and see what happens!
Click to expand...
Now you tell me!! I've installed it on this laptop (the Acer) and it hasn't made a difference to 720p as they played fine before, but I think it has made playing in 1080p a bit smoother.

I'll go and install it on the Hewlett-Packard and see what happens. Regardless of whether or not it makes it play HD videos, this laptop is slightly better spec anyway and I prefer it so buying it wasn't a waste. Plus now my mother has a decent laptop too as opposed to her 2005 Dell Latitude D600!
 
Nope, just installed it on the ProBook and it has made no difference. I am intrigued about that "ReadyBoost" though, I had never heard of it before today.

How would I go about activating that?
 
jmurray01 said:
Nope, just installed it on the ProBook and it has made no difference. I am intrigued about that "ReadyBoost" though, I had never heard of it before today.

How would I go about activating that?
Click to expand...

You'd notice more performance just throwing more RAM in there at near the cost of buying a USB stick.

Readyboost just uses USB flash storage as basically a page file. It's most beneficial in systems that don't have enough RAM like yours.
 
beers said:
You'd notice more performance just throwing more RAM in there at near the cost of buying a USB stick.

Readyboost just uses USB flash storage as basically a page file. It's most beneficial in systems that don't have enough RAM like yours.
Click to expand...
Ah right. Yeah, if I want the ProBook to run faster I'd just buy more RAM. As it stands it works fine for everything other than high quality video playing, and it won't be used for that anymore anyway. The Acer runs perfectly despite having the same amount of RAM so I don't need to worry about upgrading it.
 
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