Videos on hard drive constantly buffer


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Today I started having this issue where videos I have downloaded to my hard drive, constantly buffer.  When I start a video, everything goes smoothly for a couple min. or sometimes just a couple seconds, then I notice my hard drive light constantly flashes and my video buffers non-stop.  I did have the CC codec pack installed, so I tried uninstalling that and even updated my graphics driver, alas nothing worked.

 

I have a pretty outdated 2009 Toshiba Satellite L505D laptop with the following specs...

 

Windows 7 SP1

AMD Athlon X2 64

ATI Radeon 3100 Integrated

3GB of RAM

 

It just suddenly started happening today for no aparent reason (that I know of), so I'm a bit confused as to what's causing it.

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Sounds like a HDD issue. What's the speed of the drive, and have you noticed any other issues happening? Any file corruption, strange noises coming from the laptop, etc?

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do you hear any clicking or anything from the hard drive

 

it sounds like the drive is getting bogged down. could be a sign it's starting to go out

 

I'd recommend running a health scan on the drive. SeaTools is a pretty good app for this

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It's the stock Hard Drive, runs at 5400rpm but I have not noticed any other strange activity or heard any noises.  This is the first instance of it that I have come across. I will try it out that SeaTools app and see what comes up.  I really hope my HDD isn't about to die on me.  Far too much stuff that hasn't been backed up on here.

 

Oh and to answer someone elses question, I use VLC and MPC-HC exclusively. 

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Is this your secondary or primary HDD?

 

I have an SSD as my primary but all files/movies etc go on the secondary HDD and occasionally when I pause a movie for more than 15/20 mins then go to resume it it will glitch a bit whilst the HDD wakes up.

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Don't be procrastinating on your backups!

 

Oh you have no idea.

 

Is this your secondary or primary HDD?

 

I have an SSD as my primary but all files/movies etc go on the secondary HDD and occasionally when I pause a movie for more than 15/20 mins then go to resume it it will glitch a bit whilst the HDD wakes up.

 

This is my primary.  I ran the SeaTools app and all tests that it would allow me to run passed, I even did a chkdsk and all seems fine.  I don't get it.

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Oh you have no idea.

 

 

This is my primary.  I ran the SeaTools app and all tests that it would allow me to run passed, I even did a chkdsk and all seems fine.  I don't get it.

 

how old is the HDD? and how much space you got left?

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how old is the HDD? and how much space you got left?

 

It's stock so it'd be about 5 years old now.  Although I went off on a limb here and got a few more videos from other sources besides youtube, made sure they were MP4 and what do you know, it worked flawlessly.  So, it seems the issue isn't with my hard drive but with the videos I got from YouTube.  Which is pretty strange because I have NEVER had this issue before with past videos.

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It's stock so it'd be about 5 years old now.  Although I went off on a limb here and got a few more videos from other sources besides youtube, made sure they were MP4 and what do you know, it worked flawlessly.  So, it seems the issue isn't with my hard drive but with the videos I got from YouTube.  Which is pretty strange because I have NEVER had this issue before with past videos.

 

 

Really? That is beyond strange. Regardless of the file on your HDD it shouldn't affect the read speed to get to that specific file!!!

 

I mean I have a 1tb secondary HDD which is about 2/3 full of various pictures/movies from various sources and I have only experienced buffering after performing acts such as pause etc. But that is due to me having my secondary HDD being setup so if it is idle for 10 mins it turns off.

 

Can you differentiate between files that buffer and those who don't? ie filetypes, size, length etc

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Really? That is beyond strange. Regardless of the file on your HDD it shouldn't affect the read speed to get to that specific file!!!

 

I mean I have a 1tb secondary HDD which is about 2/3 full of various pictures/movies from various sources and I have only experienced buffering after performing acts such as pause etc. But that is due to me having my secondary HDD being setup so if it is idle for 10 mins it turns off.

 

Can you differentiate between files that buffer and those who don't? ie filetypes, size, length etc

 

Ok so, the ones that were buffering were MP4's around 1gb or so in size.  The ones that seem fine are MP4's and around 700mb.  All other filetypes, no matter the size, run fine.  My HDD is only a quarter full (189 free out of 250), this is really strange.

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Ok so, the ones that were buffering were MP4's around 1gb or so in size.  The ones that seem fine are MP4's and around 700mb.  All other filetypes, no matter the size, run fine.  My HDD is only a quarter full (189 free out of 250), this is really strange

 

OK so you said this is your primary and upwards of 1gb files via vlc were lagging.

 

Sorry if this has already been asked but what OS are you running as well?

 

Give us the full specs of your computer? RAM/GFX/Monitors?CPU etc

 

thanks, we will figure something out, we are neowin

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OK so you said this is your primary and upwards of 1gb files via vlc were lagging.

 

Sorry if this has already been asked but what OS are you running as well?

 

Give us the full specs of your computer? RAM/GFX/Monitors?CPU etc

 

thanks, we will figure something out, we are neowin

 

It's a laptop but the specs are...

 

Windows 7

3GB of RAM

ATI Radeon 3100 (Integrated)

AMD Athlon X2 64 cpu

 

 

What does something like Hard Disk Sentinel say about the drive?

 

Well I already ran SeaTools and CHKDSK, the tests came up negative.  Is that app any better/different?

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I've had 2 hard drives that the RPMs appeared to have slowed somewhat on. Even after reformatting and reinstalling the OS I had the same thing happen. Data just would not transfer as fast as when it was newer. I threw both in the trash.

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yeah, a 2009 slow, 5400 RPM, laptop drive wouldn't be in good shape today. Get an SSD and even that your laptop wont likely support SATA3 it will be light years faster than your current one.

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Well this really sucks, but I should have expected it sooner or later.  I had high hopes of it being some freak occurance and that it would all be over tomorrow.  OH WELL.

 

Thanks everyone for all your help.  I think I have a spare somewhere around here somewhere, I'll give that a go.

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