Vista Media Centre menu problem with stuttering audio/video

smithers · Post by **smithers** » Wed May 16, 2007 1:28 am

Got my PC rebuilt as media centre in an Antec Fusion case with ASRock 939NF6G-VSTA motherboard, Athlon X2 3800+, 1.5GB RAM, 500GB WD5000AAKS, Hauppauge HVR-1300 tuner. OS is Vista Home Premium.

I'm waiting on a suitable passive 8 series Geforce before connecting up to the TV.
Anyway, I have a wierd problem in Media Centre only - when MC launches, the Media Centre logo stutters as it's displayed and the sound pops/stutters a bunch of times. In the MC menu itself, there's also that slight stuttering when navigating. Because I don't have the Fusion through in the living room, I haven't got a TV signal to test with, but MP3 playback is working fine. Everything outside Media Centre is working fine, but I put on the latest Nvidia drivers and latest Realtek HD drivers but no change to the problem. I also have a Soundblaster Live External which I tested with and same problem there.

Any ideas? Can't find anything on the net about it.

Max Slowik · Post by **Max Slowik** » Wed May 16, 2007 5:08 am

What do you have for video right now?

I haven't played around a lot with Vista, but if you can set the "Classic" UI theme, I'm pretty sure Media Center still works; this will free up some video cycles.

And this happened right off the start with this build? There wasn't a time when it all worked right, right?

StanF · Post by **StanF** » Wed May 16, 2007 7:11 am

I've seen some other tips for Vista that recommend changing some sound settings. Go into the Sound control panel, then advanced, and disable "Allow this device to take exclusive control ..." or something like that. I am doing this from memory, so I might have something wrong. But if you poke around, you will find it.

I also disabled all sound enhancements on my Vista machine.

Your mileage may vary!

zerok66 · Post by **zerok66** » Wed May 16, 2007 8:00 am

I have had spluttering and crap with my media center... updating the sound card drivers downloaded from the manufacturers website helped quite a bit. I would say ditch the standard Vista drivers (even the updated ones).

smithers · Post by **smithers** » Tue May 22, 2007 4:45 am

Just some info, tried updating drivers, no luck and disabling sound enhancements, using the classic UI theme. Problem still the same. I noticed something on Google just now that suggested the power should be maximum performance rather than balanced, so will try that when I get home tonight.

I am running the onboard Geforce 6150 just now, until I get a passive 8600GT/GTS in a week or two. Guess I will live with it just now and look at it again after I get the new card.

Thanks all for suggestions.