Video / Display

[#1]

just got a NB205-N311/w netbook (Windows XP, 1 GB memory, Atom N280 processor, Intel GMA 950 graphics). At this point the netbook is pretty much configured as out of the box. When I try running HULU (Hulu.com website for TV shows, etc.) in full screen there is a little jittering when full screen movement occurs. Hulu uses Flash.

I have tried:

1) insure CPU at level 5

2) Set Flash quality level to Medium

3) Not a network problem as other notebooks work fine from the same location also the buffer shows plenty of data.

4) Increase flash max buffer size to unlimited

5) I am not running other programs or processes. I don't even run a virus check

6) Run in a new tab on the browser (pop-up player it is called). Seems a little better but when go full screen the problem re-occurs.

7) Tried IE 8, Firefox 3.5, Chrome. IE 8 seems to be the best host browser (surprising to me).

Are there any further suggestions for me to try?

Will increasing the memory to 2 GB help on this issue.

It this application just too much for the ATOM processor?

[#2]

mini notebook NB205-N311/W

Try uninstalling and then reinstalling Flash Player.

   How to uninstall the Adobe Flash Player plug-in and ActiveX control

   Install Adobe Flash Player

[#3]

Jerry, thanks for the suggestion.

As suggested, I uninstalled Flash and then tried re-installing separately the Firefox plug-in and then the IE plug-in.

The results were the same as before. The same stuttering is still present.

Any additional suggestions?

[#4]

What's your download speed?

   Speed Tests

[#5]

The download speed using dslreports.com java speed test is 5100 kbps to a close site. This speed has been consistent when I have tested with several notebooks as well. Hulu works fine on my Toshiba notebook with a core 2 duo 5500 CPU.

I also replaced the 1GB memory with a 2gb memory board. This did not make any difference.

I am thinking I may be hitting the upper limit of graphics performance of the atom N280 processor and the on-board Intel graphics combination.

However, it would be nice if there was a solution because the NB205 is perfect for using Flash sites when travelling or for watching a TV show on my patio.

[#6]

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I am thinking I may be hitting the upper limit of graphics performance of the atom N280 processor and the on-board Intel graphics combination.

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Surely not the 1.66GHz Atom processor. You can easily check that in Task Manager (taskmgr.exe - press Ctrl+Shift+Esc). CPU Usage would be at 100% on the Performance tab.

I wonder if something loading automatically is getting in the way. Do a little clean-boot troubleshooting.

   How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state

[#7]

Hi Jerry,

Using some information in your last post I think that I have found some interesting information that may explain the situation.

I followed the article and disabled items in the selective startup option as the article suggested. After a restrart the situation was the same but seemed a little better. I next tried the further suggestion of disabling systerm services but so much was disabled that nothing started including the wireless service.

I selected the normal startup, rebooted, then disabled startup items that looked questionable like pinger, adobe reader, etc. Rebooted.

Started hulu as embedded in the web page. Started task manager and looked at cpu usage. system idle was 45-55% with internet explorer taking most of the rest of the CPU. This video is smooth in this player.

Next selected pop out player (basically a bigger player but still in a web page). Internet explorer now takes 60-80% of the CPU with the system idle process less. I checked the tab that shows total CPU usage and the total was what you would expect given the detailed process CPU usage. The video is a little jerky but better than in the full screen player.

Tried using the full screen player but could not get this running and have the task manager visible. I think this version of HULU (flash) is the most intensive of the versions so one would expect the CPU percentage allocated to IE to increase above the 60-80% allocated earlier. The video in this version is the most jerky.

Also if all of the startup items were running a little CPU would be used by these processes.

I noticed if the web page is not visible, i. e. the reply web page is maximized but hulu is running (I can hear it), the amount of CPU allocated to IE goes down significantly.

I re-enabled everything and the result was the same.

Thanks for all of your help.

Jon

[#8]

Good detective work, Jon!

Maybe you can learn still more by experimenting further.

[#9]

So a solution is to disable pinger and Adobe Reader?  Good work so far.  I think these netbooks are quite capable computers.  Of course you cna't have a bunch of stuff running in the background.

[#10]

No, the solution is not to disable these.

Based upon the high percentage of the CPU used by internet explorer when using HULU in full screen mode, there may not be a satisfactory solution.

I checked the support forums for other netbooks and found this problem was noted on the other brand netbooks. The solution that was offered most often was to use a ramdisk or SD card as the home for the internet explorer cache. I tried this solution and the situation did not improve.