Why can't I watch videos online?

[Woodie]

For some reason whenever I try to watch a tv show, movie, trailer, YouTube video, whatever, the video constantly stops and loads for several minutes, or shows come up as just a series of snapshots of the scenes rather than the streaming video, or sometimes the picture will lock up but the audio keeps playing. It doesn't matter if I go to Hulu, the network site, or some random place, I am never able to watch anything online.

Now, I have downloaded the latest versions of RealPlayer, Quicktime, and probably a couple of other streaming sources, yet I still have the same problems, no matter what source I use. I used to use Norton, but it bogged down my system, so I switched to Avast. However, the problem was the same with both anti-virus's. I have no idea what the problem is, or what I can do to correct it. So does anyone have any idea what I can do?

[ItsNotGonnaBeAlright]

How old of a computer and when was the last time you got an update for Avast?

[Zaximus]

LOL are you on dial-up?

[dexterpyro]

can ur video card take it?? Is it at least a 64 mb??

[Woodie]

How old of a computer and when was the last time you got an update for Avast?

It's probably 6-7 years old, and I just downloaded Avast in February.

By the way, I use a laptop (I don't know if that makes a difference or not). But under System Properties it shows:

Intel ® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.40 GHz

2.39 GHz, 512 MB of RAM

(I don't know why it shows the two numbers for GHz)

Windows XP Version 2002, Service Pack 3

LOL are you on dial-up?

I use Road Runner

can ur video card take it?? Is it at least a 64 mb??

As if you can't already tell, I am in no way a computer wizard, so it might not be a surprise to know that I have no idea about a video card. In fact, while I have heard of the term, I really don't know anything about it. So, I guess my simple answer is, I don't know. How can I check?

Thanks everyone.

[ItsNotGonnaBeAlright]

Time to upgrade, brotha!

Windows XP can be a memory hog, especially online. 512 mb of RAM probably aint gonna cut it with the massive ammounts of information that is contained in a video file. For things like email, most websites, and downloading pictures it'll work, but streaming video will push that thing to the limits. Plus, Pentium 4's aren't the greatest in terms of processing speed, so that's probably not helping anything.

Since it's a laptop, theres a good chance that you don't have a graphics card and instead are set up to use what's called dedicated memory, which is essentially a section of your computers RAM segmented out solely for a certain purpose, in this case graphics. So your probably not even getting full use of your RAM when trying to watch videos.

If nothing else, pop at least an extra 512 Mb stick of RAM in there and see what that does. If your still having a lot of problems, well, there are a lot of electronics stores that are having financial problems and you could probably get a nice deal on a new computer. I like Acer products myself. Good price and I've never had a problem out of the three that I own (two desktops, one laptop).

Hope that helps!

[Johnny Rockets]

I had the same problem......(still have the same problem)....here is a thread on it and some suggestions. Hope it helps:

http://www.carolinahuddle.com/forum/lounge/9578-someone-help-me-please-pc-help.html

[Zaximus]

You should be able to watch any video online with the PC you have bro, don't listen to them.

At the office we have a P3 900mhz 256mb of ram PC that we watch youtube's and hulu's on.

[Scrumtrilescent]

Your flash up to date?

[Woodie]

Thanks guys, a lot of good info here.

[Seamonk]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt9j80Jkc_A[/ame]

"Have you tried turning it off and on again?"