Hi I have a query regarding my Toshiba Satellite Pro (P10-974):

OS: Windows XP Home Edition
Processor: Pentium 4 3.00 GHz
Ram: 512Mb
Graphics Card: Geforce FX Go5200
Sound Card: Realtek AC97 Audio (This is what it says in 'Audio Devices')
Hard Disk Space: 55Gb

Recently whenever I try to play a music/movie file I will often get distorted sounds. Sometimes the files play perfectly and at other times I won't hear anything at all. Also I noticed that the movie files seem to 'lag' whenever the sound got distorted. Initally I thought that the speakers were at fault so I plugged in some earphones but I still heard the same distorted sounds. This problem also extends to when I am playing games and generally whenever a sound needs to be played.

I have virus/spyware scanned my pc, defragged and even gone as far as to format and reinstall everything, but the problem still exists. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Try disabling all of your anti-virus / anti-spyware software (disconnect from the Internet before you do this) and then try again. It could be either that other software is coincidentally doing an automated thorough scan of your hard disk at the same time (that will slow hard disk access down and sound files are particularly affected by this) or it may be that those sound files are being scanned each time they are being accessed which, again, will slow down access to them and affect performance.

Remember to re-enable your security software after you've done that test.

Let us know if that makes any difference

Thank you for the reply DJNafey.

I shutdown my anti-virus program but the problem still persists. I tried the same procedure with my firewall program much to the same result

However I am finding now that sometimes even the videos refuse to show up when being played and that I am more likely to hear no sound at all than distortions. When I disabled the audio device, the movie files played fine with no lag, but obviously without sound

Device Manager tells me that the device is working fine, but is it possible that my sound card has bit the dust?

Did you solve your problem? I'm in the same situation, i was seing a movie and suddently the sound freaks, and get distortion and slow motion...

Right click on My Computer. Select Properties. System Properties should open, Select the Hardware Tab, then click on Device Manager.

Scroll to IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Uninstall at least the Primary IDE Channel & Secondary IDE Channel drivers. You may need to uninstall the Intel (if you have that controller).

Restart the PC and Windows will re-install the Drivers. Whopee. All is like new.

What had been the problem was Windows had blocked DMA access for some reason, now DMA will be back and your computer will be like NEW again.

Welcome to D-A-L.

Look in the top left corner of posts to see when they were created/posted. You're responding to an old query.