Media + hard drive issue

madindehead · 5 Aug 2011 at 16:33

I have an issue with the hard drive which stores my videos. It is a WD Caviar green drive.

If I play a video file, in either Windows Media Player, or MPC Home Cinema, and then pause it, when resuming play after a while, the video stalls, and takes a while to play again.

In WMP the audio continues, and the video speeds up to catch up with the video. In Home Cinema, the video stays black, and I have to skip to the correct time to get the video back.

Anyone got any ideas what would be causing this? And how to fix it? The drive seems perfectly healthy otherwise.

madindehead · 5 Aug 2011 at 21:34

Anyone got any ideas?

ToejaM · 5 Aug 2011 at 21:37

You dont have the drive set to turn off do you after a certain amount of time, sounds to me like its buffering enough video to playback and then when you pause it, spins the drive again and causes a hang. I'm probably totally off but worth checking your power settings.

Have you checked how much ram is being used at the time and cpu? Upgraded your graphics drivers?

madindehead · 5 Aug 2011 at 21:43

ToejaMz0r said:
You dont have the drive set to turn off do you after a certain amount of time, sounds to me like its buffering enough video to playback and then when you pause it, spins the drive again and causes a hang. I'm probably totally off but worth checking your power settings.

Have you checked how much ram is being used at the time and cpu? Upgraded your graphics drivers?

I will check the power on the drive. Could explain it.

Graphics drivers are latest, and not an issue.

Update: Drives were set to turn off after 20 mins. I will pause it for 25 mins, and see if it affects it now (drives set to not turn off).

madindehead · 5 Aug 2011 at 22:30

Yeah, I think it was because the drives were set to turn off!

Silly me!

ToejaM · 5 Aug 2011 at 22:45

I hope thats fixed it bud

I hate the default setting to turn the HDD off after 20minutes, not very helpful when your PC goes into sleep mode.. for some reason affects the wake on mouse/keyboard to.. have to press the power button to kickstart the HDD.

If it doesnt fix, maybe if you're on latest graphics drivers try the previous version, thatll be a starter for you just incase

madindehead · 5 Aug 2011 at 23:12

Yeah, I paused the video for 25 mins (the usual time that used to make it stutter) and it was fine. Thanks mate.

deanolfc · 6 Aug 2011 at 00:06

i have the same problem with the WD green Hd its in a external icybox tho , is there anythink i can do to stop it from hanging after bein paused for a while

madindehead · 6 Aug 2011 at 00:20

deanolfc said:
i have the same problem with the WD green Hd its in a external icybox tho , is there anythink i can do to stop it from hanging after bein paused for a while

Unless you can stop it powering down, I'm not sure. Making sure the drive doesn't power down has fixed it for me.