I downloaded a new winamo and windows media player but I can't play music - it is all slow and distorted.

Any ideas on how to fix it?

I have quite a few programs running, could it be the memory?

If so how can I improve it?

cheers

I downloaded a new winamo and windows media player but I can't play music - it is all slow and distorted.

Any ideas on how to fix it?

I have quite a few programs running, could it be the memory?

How does it play with JUST winamp / media player (close all the other stuff)??

Same problem with all music files?

Open task manager (ctrl-alt-del in Win XP), select 'performance' how much CPU / memory is being used?

CPU usage about 60%

PF usage 683Mb

Physical memory - total 253000

Available 31000

System cache 60000

I haven't a clue what all that means, if you can help, thanks.

It does sounds as bad with the programs closed too.

When was it working last? Did you install a new winamp and also media player? If you are running XP then maybe go back to the day before you installed the new software and see if that helps.

How much space do you have on your Hard Disk? Check you have enough... your performance will suffer if there's not enough to work with.

Check your paging file settings.

[start] right click [My Computer] click [Properties]

Click [Advanced] tab then click [settings] in the [Performance] section

Click the [Advanced] tab and then click [Change] under the [Virtual Memory] section

Make sure that [system managed size] is checked. You have less than 256Mb of RAM and i'd imagine your graphics card is sharing some of that. Windows should be able to manage your Page File adequately without manually changing this size.

You didn't mention if all your other programs are slow or just the music, so i'll make the assumptions that they are and you have shared graphics. If you know how to enter the BIOS on startup, then check that the AGP settings on your graphics are not set too high. Bring the value down to as low as possible and try rebooting and see if it makes a difference.

Also. If your HDD has any acoustic settings in the BIOS then try bypassing them. I can think of one computer in the past which i managed to speed up considerably by switching off the HDD quiet mode. Made a hel_l of a difference.

Other than that... check everything that is running is supposed to be running.

Hit Start Menu

Hit the Run button

Type msconfig [enter]

Select the Startup tab

Uncheck anything that you don't want running.

Finally, check your computer for Adware/Malware using Adaware and Spybot to ensure that no hidden programs are eating up your resources.

Update your virus checker and give your machine a full scan.

Ummmm... that should give yer a few things to be getting on with. Have fun.

james

Hit Start Menu

Hit the Run button

Type msconfig [enter]

Select the Startup tab

Uncheck anything that you don't want running.

I did that and everythings fine, thanks