VLC slows down HDD to a crawl

Mar 16, 2018
2
0
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For some reason, whenever I'm listening or running a video in VLC Media Player, the HDD slows down a crawl, like uncompressing files will go at a rate of less than 1MB/s. When I pause VLC, the speed jumps up back to normal speeds, and then goes back down when VLC is resumed.


Sometimes it doesn't do this though, and everything runs at proper speed even with audio streaming on VLC and uncompressing files, ect. I tries putting the audio files on a USB 3 drive instead of running it from the system HDD (which is the drive uncompressing files is being done on), but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Like I said, sometimes this doesn't happen (while running the same files in VLC) and the HDD runs at proper speed even while uncompressing files and ect, usually at least ~50+mb/s as opposed to 5000kbs/s, or even less.

Anyone know why this might be happening? Thanks. It's a SATA 7200 RPM HDD.

CPU usage isn't effected. I've checked the usual things in resource manager but notice nothing unusual, except the HDD slowing to a crawl while playing audio files in VLC. RAM usuage isn't unusual either, like right now I'm only using 3GB out of 8GB but the HDD crawls at less than a 1mb/s until VLC is paused, even though the file being streamed is on a separate drive.
 

friedlander.m.s

Honorable
Feb 16, 2018
77
0
10,710

Unfortunately, the default power settings dumb-down the possible speed of the computer.

Start> Control panel > look in the upper path bar, click on the arrow ">" after "control panel."
this opens a drop down menu
Then click "All control panel items"
Click: Power Options
Click: Show Additional Plans
Click: The arrow, check the box that says "high performance."
Click: Change Plan Settings
Turn Off Display: Never
Put Computer to Sleep: Never
Click: change advanced power settings
Hard Disk : turn off hard disk after: Never
Wireless adapter Settings: power saving mode Setting: Max Performance
Sleep: sleep after: Never
Allow Hybrid Sleep: Setting: Off
Hibernate After: Setting: Never
Allow Wake Timers: Setting Disabled
USB Settings: selective suspend setting Setting: Disabled
PCI Express Link Power State Setting: off
Display: turn off display Setting: Never (turn off monitor manually if desired)
Multimedia Settings
When sharing media : prevent idling to sleep
When Playing video: Setting: optimize video quality
Now: Click "OK"
Computer> system properties > Now open the Device Manager
Click On: mice and pointing devices ">" click on the arrow
Double Click on HID complaint Mouse
Click: power management tab
UN-check the box that says: "allow computer to turn off this device to save power"
Now open all devices on the list, and turn OFF all power savers, for every device, as above.
Now Click " OK"
Antivirus: set for "multimedia mode."
This prevents updating from interrupting your media. If you do not have an antivirus with this feature: get a different antivirus.
Set ALL updates to: manual. This prevents an update from eating resources that you would otherwise be using.

Free antivirus from internet: I do not recommend that you install any "free" security tools.
I do not recommend installing "cleaner," "sweeper," "driver helper,"or any free junk from the internet.

Avoid any download which claims to "fix" your computer.

I recommend that you use a professional all-in-one security application - not a free download.

Please consider, when you install multiple security programs, they can conflict with each-other. That's why you should use "all-in-one" professional security.
Restart the computer
Open Bios
Turn off Cool and Quiet (if AMD processor) Save and exit bios settings.
Restart Computer
Problems should be fixed now.