[c0lin]

Towards the end of a song, all songs played in Windows Media Player, it starts to skip. It only skips for a second or 2. It kind of feels like it's prefetching the next song and that's what's causing but I wouldn't know how to turn that off. I'm not sure when it started happening because it didn't bug me that much.

My specs are in my sig (see below post).

There is a Vista driver (initial release) out for my sound card. See link: http://support.dell....p;fileid=189760

That had no affect. Honestly I haven't done much troubleshooting but I have all sorts of little problems that maybe other people don't know how to fix and bringing it on here puts it out there for other people right? Anyway, anyone have this problem in Vista with WMP11?

(Haven't tried another player. Files work fine in WinXP off the same partition in WMP11 on XP, I don't have aero enabled and I have no other proggys except for AV and whatever else starts up in the background running. I've got the K-Lite codec pack Full installed, haven't tried removing the codecs and trying different ones. I'm not switching back to Itunes, Itunes is great on XP but horribly slow and clunky looking in Vista. Can't really think of anything else I haven't tried but will probably try.)

[Sandi]

Another person had a similar problem on another forum, except that his files played fine from his HD but skipped if played from his DVD/CD player.

Because he had already tried everything under the sun, I suggested reinstalling all of the drivers and codecs on the hunch that one might be damaged enough to slow decompression, but still work (the system is busier working from DVD than HD).

He replaced all of his drivers and codecs and told me that it fixed his skipping problem. It was a long shot and supprised me too, but like I told him, it doesn't cost anything to try it. You have replaced the drivers, but try the codecs too.

Now what are the chances of seeing this rare odd problem fixed twice with the same advice?

[c0lin]

Chances? Very good. I give the same advice for a multitude of different problems. ('Reinstall windows' for example, hehe)

I'm at work right now but I'll try that when I get home to my system. Let you know how it goes. Sometimes I like to post problems people won't respond to, glad someone responded this time around.

Example:
http://thevistaforum...?showtopic=4447

[Sandi]

Heh, well I didn't know it was there. Must have missed it when you posted, but it just threw in my 2 cents.

[c0lin]

Ok removed all codecs last night. Still had the issue. I'm going to do a clean boot tonight when I get home from work, see if that has any affect. Then I'll start disabling Windows services one by one till I get down to the bare basic services needed for sound playback.

I imagine if it's a Windows service that's the problem or if I still have the issue after all that I'm going to back up my stuff, format my drive, and reinstall Vista.

Unless someone has a better idea or has had this problem before.

[Sandi]

You might also meter your CPU usage and look for correlating spikes.

[c0lin]

That's a good idea too. If that were the case I could find out which process is causing it. I'll also try reinstalling WMP11, though it's apart of the OS so I won't be able to remove it then put it back, just repair.

[c0lin]

Update:

So I've been monitoring it more closely. Songs start skipping 20 seconds before the end. So I know for sure that it's gotta be pre-fetching the next song down the list. CPU usage does jump up, from 1% to 50%. But it's wmplayer.exe that is using it. So it's not any other software causing it. Looks like WMP11 is breaking itself. I've tried disabling anything in it's options that might affect it but no go.

[Sandi]

Colin these files are being played from your HD not from a CD/DVD drive right?

[c0lin]

Same thing happens with both mediums.

[Ender]

Do you happen to have a Draft-N Wireless card as part of your Dell?

There is an ongoing discussion of the same topic on Dell's Community about the subject. Many people have a similar issue, but the common factor is that everyone has the Draft-N Wireless card Dell offers.

It is an issue with XP as well with Vista.

I have an Inspiron E1705/9400 with a draft-n card with Vista Ultimate RTM installed and have the same problem. I had the same issue when I had XP Pro Service Pack 2 installed as well.

If you disable your wireless card when you are listening to music, it should stop skipping.

Dell needs to release drivers for the w-nic card that stop this for both XP and Vista. Hopefully they do so soon.

[c0lin]

N cards weren't available when I bought my system. So I've just got A/B/G. Disabled wireless anyway, still no change.

The sound doesn't constantly skip though. It skips for 1-2 seconds, 20 seconds before the end of every song. Didn't really care at first but now it's annoying as hell.

Did a clean boot, no change. Have yet to format/reinstall, it's a bee-itch so I've been procrastinating on that. Tried with and without Dell sound drivers. Attempted to disable as many useless Windows Services as possible, still no change. Set the wmplayer.exe process priority as High, no change so tried Realtime, still no change. Turned on crossfading (it was off by default) no change. Turned crossfading off, no change.

I'm pretty stumped. I attempted to find a Microsoft support contact to email them about the issue but it doesn't look like they are officially providing 'tech support' for WMP11.

This post has been edited by colin86: 28 December 2006 - 08:44 AM

[Ender]

Okay, I figured it might be a similar problem to other Dell users.

Before I reinstall I would try another player though. Winamp maybe. And see if it still happens. The newest version of Winamp should work with Vista.

A few people had success at reverting back to DE05 Firmware, instead o the current DE07. Not sure if the problem is the same though.

[c0lin]

Damn it, stupid WMP. Guess I'll just get to work on skinning Winamp to look like WMP11. Sound is so much better in Winamp too... Why can't MS do something as simple as a media player right.

[spysect]

Sony VAIO Owners (such as me) are also having this problem of music skipping 20 seconds before the end of the song. Hopefully Microsoft has something to fix this annoying problem. But now Im installing iTunes to use instead of WMP11

This post has been edited by spysect: 30 December 2006 - 11:07 PM