Anyone know alot about computer parts?

So i’m having some computer troubles and i’ll try and calmly explain them, as people often get them confused with other problems, as this problem has been going on for months now.

Back in August i got a refurbished computer that was suppose to be much better than my old one. This computer had Quad core, and some sort of dual Ram like thing in it that has 4 Gigs of ram between two parts.

Now i may be decently educated on things on the computer, but i’m not so great with things physically in the computer, and i’m suspecting that there is a part broken in this computer. Or Laptop i should say.

We had a warranty for it but it has expired before the problem got to be anything too noticeable and just gets progressively worse.

The problem is is that this laptop cannot seem to complete many functions. Videos online cannot completely load, and i don’t mean a buffering issue. The Laptop will attempt to load and buffers only 20 seconds or so and think’s that was 100% The video will end at that 20 second mark and the time stamp will read 0:20/0:20 rather than what the original length of the video was. Most of the time this is only on videos that aren’t on youtube itself, so i can’t watch a single tutorial on Blendercookie because the youtube players will stop after 10-20 seconds, and the Vimeo players just error at that same spot.

Other websites that use youtube videos sometimes offer a download option. I tried to download a 24 minute video since it couldn’t load. The file starts to download and finishes extremely quick. The file that i get says the video is 24 minutes long, but when you try to play it, it plays that first 10-20 seconds, and then the media player crashes. and i notice the video file’s size certainly doesn’t match up with the video’s length. (however oddly enough i have never had a single problem working Netflix videos)

Now i know someone complaining about videos not working is annoying, but that isn’t the only effect here.

Say here on this forum i need to upload a blend file for someone (which is actually what i was just trying to do.)

The file is 2MB but i can’t upload it. I can see a box in the bottom left corner telling me the percentage of the file that has been uploaded. it will get anywhere from 50% to 90% and just plain give up.

I’ve tried to download some programs lately like, i think one was called My Paint i learned about in one of the Blender DVD’s that had a great way to storyboard things. This program amongst many others, when i try to use the installer i upload, it just reads that the file is corrupt and i need to ask the owner of the file for a new copy. This leads me to believe that it’s missing files it needs because they couldn’t download fully.

Ever since i got this computer there has been this odd lag that happens at random. it may happen once a day, or 5 times every 10 minutes. But this lag is the entirety of the computer lag. Sound warps and slows down, the mouse will slow down, moving images will slow down, typing is delayed… It is litterally like a RC with low batteries. It works, but everything about it is slowed and makes terrible noises. Or the power in a house nearly going out is another example. Everythign dims for a moment and things like a VCR playing a tape will make odd noises and play funny and then after a few seconds the power is back and everything in the house is fine again.

Sometimes a Friend and I will watch a youtube video at the same time over some sort of communication like a phone or an Xbox live party or what not. We can hit play at the same time, and i’ll get this horrid sounding lagg that you almost cringe at depending how bad it is, and when it happens, even though neither of us paused, my video will be 3-8 seconds behind his. and then that lag can hit many times in several minutes, but this example is just to demonstrate this slowing down effect. I’m curious what would happen if i ran a screen recorder while it happens, if i would see the lag in the recording or not.

I read somewhere that that is a sign of a part being broken in my computer. But for the life of me i can’t remember what part they said, or find that article again.

So overall what i’m asking is if anyone would know what part in a computer could be having an issue that would cause this or if there even is one at all.


Now one more thing… Rather than a FAQ, this would be more of a Frequent responses to these issues.

  1. Try different browsers.
    I have tried this on Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Opera. Nothing changes.

  2. Try re downloading Flash.
    No difference

  3. Change to the HTML5 player
    No change

  4. Pause and let the videos load.
    You obviously didn’t read half of what i said.

  5. Try having less applications running
    I’ve had only a single browser with a single tab up on my computer and it still happens.

  6. You don’t have a very good internet connection.
    I assure you i do, sometimes up to 30mps and the other computers in this house which are the same operating system as mine do not have any of these issues. (Windows 7 computers)

  7. Restart your computer
    This worked for a week or so but as this problem has gotten worse, this doesn’t fix the problem anymore. And I know that when you close a browser it’s HTML5 setting can sometimes be turned off.

  8. Redownload the browsers.
    No change.

  9. Clear your cache/cookies.
    Didn’t change anything, just made my browsers forget all my passwords even though i told it not to clear those.

  10. Clear stuff off your computer if there’s too much.
    I have 36G free space at the moment.

  11. Run an Anti Virus software and see if you have anything.
    I have run full scans of Avast and McAfee, Quick scans, and even de fraged the computer aswell.

  12. Try downloading 32 bit versions of the Browsers.
    Every single time i find a download for that it says the files are corrupt and i need to ask the file creator for a newer copy of the file.


Overall… This is something ive had for months now, and due to the fact that no one else seems to have it, i am beginning to believe that it’s not the programs or internet problems rather than a problem with my own computer.

I don’t exactly have hundreds of dollars to spend to have someone simply look at the computer to only possibly find something wrong. So i would just greatly appreciate if someone smart enough on computer components could give me a little bit more light on the situation. I could try and save money to get the computer fixed, but i would rather do it if this wasn’t based on suspicion and if i could tell the people who work on computers where the problem may be so that they don’t turn up with the same answer that i see people try to give and fail on Yahoo Answers.

I really appreciate you reading through all of this, Everyone here on the BAF have always been so helpful and i cannot express enough how much I appreciate having the support of you all when ever i have questions or problems.


Can you give us all the specs on the computer. Not just the CPU and RAM, but also what kind of storage drives are in use.

From the sound of it, you may have a hard drive that’s on it’s last legs. Is there any out-of-place sounds when this slowdown occurs, like constant clicking or crunching? How does the computer behave when you do a complete boot?

This problem may be a hardware-problem, but i think its more a sort of operating-system-problem. If you run a windows OS, you should try to have a look at your taskmanager, that can be accessed by pressing STRG-ALT-DEL at the same time and then choose Taskmanager with the mouse. Have a look at the processes running, which process uses much of the CPU, which process uses much RAM.

Hmm, to be sure, i was looking up how to find more specs and i heard to go to Device manager on my computer. and if Disk Drives are what you mean by storage drives, when i drop down that list only one thing shows up called a ST9750420AS
but somehow i get the feeling that’s not it.

I’m glad i wont hear repetitive clicking. that would be even more annoying. The best example i can think of is about 20 seconds into this video. This is just the noise that happens when you do slow motion in Sony Vegas, it’s pretty similar but you can imagine how awful it sounds if it were people talking or other louder noises than the example he uses.

I can turn off the computer just fine and restart it. When i do this it seems that my problems get significantly worse for about an hour or so, and then everything is the same… except for the Harddrive lag that occurs will become a once or twice a day sort of thing again for a day or two and slowly happens more and more often as the days go on.

Have a look at the processes running, which process uses much of the CPU, which process uses much RAM.

I notice that it logs each tab for the browsers that are up and each tab takes up quite a bit of space compared to some other things… And that confuses me because i’ve tried before to see if it was a matter of how many things were running all at once before and the same problems occurred if i only had 1 tab and no applications going than they do when i have several tabs and a few applications going.

Nontheless the things besides Tabs that take up alot of KB are, ironically enough task manager, some blue ray tray (dunno what that is), Desktop window manager (also dunno), i wonder why Windows Explorer is 37k kb, Ms paint is like 11k for some reason…

As far as the CPU goes, periodically only 1-3 things change to a 01 for just a moment and go back to 00. I never knew what that meant either s:

Yes, ST9750420AS is your hard disk. ST stands for Seagate, the manufacturer, the rest is the model number. You can find Seagate’s “SeaTools” for checking your hard disk here (with introductory videos… just realized how stupid it is to tell someone who can’t download videos about tutorial vids… Sorry for that!).

MemTest will tell you if faulty RAM might be the culprit.

Apart from the hard disk / RAM check:
Problem is that an issue that diffuse could be everything and nothing.
Tell you what: Get to another PC, download a Linux Live DVD (e. g. LinuxMint) and burn it to disk. Put that into the “problem child” notebook and make sure that it boots from the DVD drive. This will start a linux environment on your PC from the DVD only - without changing anything on your hard disk unless you explicitly tell it to. As loading from DVD takes longer than from hard disk, booting and starting apps will take significantly longer, but that’s not the point: Connect to the internet, open Firefox and start to surf, to download files, to experiment.

If those lag / sound stutter / download corruption issues do not occur on Linux, you can be perfectly sure that you don’t have a hardware, but rather a software / configuration / driver problem. That still could be anything, but at least you’re not hunting bogus hardware bugs any more and can concentrate on fixing your Windows installation.

Just to be sure: I just stumbled across your remark about having done a virus scan with McAfee and Avast. You don’t have them both installed, have you? McAfee alone has quite a reputation for being a resource hog (seems to get better recently, but still) but another virus scanner on top of that?

What operating system are you running?

Can you give us a list of processes that are running in the background?

McAfee and Avast are both terrible,get something like Malwarebytes and just edit its registry when the trails runs out to reset it (or you can buy it if you like it)

@DCBloodHound :

other computers in this house which are the same operating system as mine do not have any of these issues. (Windows 7 computers)

+1 to harddrive problem, +1 to not to use 2 antiviruses (even one is annoying)(MS has it’s ‘Destroyer’ anyways), +1 to check boot from LiveCD (any one would do, even DSL, can be hard to get around but fun, anyways).
Check browser plugins, addons, disable one by one which you know you would never use because you do not like their names ;).
Reinstall Clayhouse company’s flash plugin (you need to hunt for that since it installs it’s ‘downloader’ beforehand, however that might be enough. Use another pc to download on USB stick.)
To download videos - FF and DownloadHelper addon usually works fine.
I’d suspect dusty CPU cooler, but then it would work fine after switch on for a while.

Edit: In case you say i did not read FAQ or FRI No2 -“Every single time i find a download for that it says the files are corrupt”. Use another pc and USB to correct installations on yours.