HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BSoD (Skype)

I just got this a month ago:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834115598

Simple HD video (540p and above) on web-sites, anything I download, and other forms of video above 240x320 plays very slowly or not at all. Any web-sites moderately coded in Flash/animation are slow as well. Also, when I try to video conference with people, the netbook slowly comes to a halt within about a minute, crashes, and restarts.

This occurs in both Vista and Win 7. Any idea how to fix these issues? Should I just get XP? Acer support is terrible and I'm definitely not paying for support on a product that is clearly not working due to their fault.

Any help would be much appreciated. Newegg approved a RMA, but there's a hefty restocking fee and I have two weeks to figure out how to fix the issues before I can have to return it.

Oddly enough, the Aspire One my father purchased almost a year ago with less RAM, less processing power, and a smaller hard drive plays YouTube HD videos perfectly fine and video conferences without any issue in Skype.

Update 1: So I was an idiot and did not read the first post about the 751h and 7, however I have installed all it suggests except the GMA 500 driver. How do I install this when it's a Vista driver? 7 pops up a dialog box that tells me the driver is not made for 7, then exits.

Also, I've installed all the other drivers (BIOS flashed too) and the two issues are still a problem. The machine is running a little faster however, so that's kind of nice.

Update 2: Okay, I've tried all the codecs (downloaded K-Lite Full), tried installing CoreAVC with WMP 11 (it freezes my computer when playing a HD video), tried installing Cyberlink 8 manually and using the settings here:
http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1192826.htm

Now MPC freezes the computer too. What am I doing wrong? I think I need that Vista driver to work, but it won't install because 7 won't let me do it. I've literally exhausted every media player I have and I've been trying to force it to use h.264 without any success.

Update 3: Now I've started forcing it to use CoreAVC codec in MPC, and the 720p HD video I'm playing (, AVI format downloaded with the HD downloader) is playing much faster than it was, but it's still quite broken with a lot of audio static. Any ideas?

Update 4: HD video plays flawlessly at 50% size. Still messing with settings to see if there's something specific that will work. CoreAVC definitely does nothing different from manually forcing MPC-HC to use Cyberlink h.264.

Update 5: Been trying all kinds of guides. WMP still crashes the entire computer, QT takes 5 minutes to load, and MPC always stutters. I'm pulling my hair out, trying to figure out why others besides me are having success.

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

A significant number (I don't say all because I don't know if all, but quite a number) of 751's come from Acer with this problem set. There does not appear to be any guaranteed way to fix this at this time, even if you return your machine to Acer for repair. Best case is that the system only needs newer drivers that don't exist at the moment, but might be released at any time, including months from now from either Intel and/or Acer.

The worst reported lockups seem to correlate with Video conferencing (you got that one), crashing coming out of suspend or hibernate, and crashing when scrolling or adding URL's to browsers. Up until a couple of days ago I thought this was a hardware problem, but the specificity of the things that cause crashes now seems to me to be far more likely to be from driver problems.

I don't know of any way that you can "make" the machine work correctly now and the way that it should, although you should look at the thread in this forum on "Netbook Freezes Randomly" for the most current information on possible fixes.

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

I do not understand why older, smaller models can play HD video and video conference without any issues whatsoever. How could they release a netbook that doesn't accomplish fundamental tasks?

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

ATOM N270-based netbooks (the little ones) have been in production with their associated video and bridge chip set for ~18 months (which is a long time in microchip years), and in that time the manufacturers have been able to perfect the driver set and manufacturing design for these products. If you buy a netbook that uses this ATOM part today, there is a good chance that it will work as promised. No surprises and no weird behavior expected.

The Aspire 751 uses a different ATOM chip, the Z520, and a brand new bridge + Video chip called the US15W/GMA500. There is no significant manufacturing history for these chips and Acer has no idea if the Intel drivers for the chip set work as they should with all of the software that we are likely to install. Acer doesn't even know if the driver they wrote is working properly, at least not yet, thus they have had two BIOS updates so far. Machines that have been returned for repair to Acer have often come back with their hard drive replaced, but we are still trying to get a sense of whether that is a complete and lasting fix to the problems that people are having. Clearly sometimes the machines return in proper working order, but we are waiting to see if the repair is still good several weeks from now.

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

So you think I might need to replace the hard drive?

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

If messing around with the machine to get it to do what you want really bothers you, you might want to return the machine and get something else. Depending on what your original requirements were, there are several other machines that could meet your needs including: Gateway LT31 and a pile of new Intel SUxxxx chip set designs.

If you enjoy, or at least can tolerate the fact that this machine was put out before the engineering was completed and that there are all sorts of things to be sorted out and updated software drivers to be installed, then you might want to hang on to it.

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

Thanks for the advie. Any idea of how I can stay informed on when the drivers will be updated to a point of usability for HD and video conferencing? If it's too far off, I'll probably return it.

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

Switch over to the"Netbook Freezes Randomly" thread in this forum and hope someone figures it out soon. If you have any time constraint, give it up and trade for a different machine, no one knows when this problem will be solved. I was hoping that we will hear something from Intel at their Developer's Conference next week, but since other companies that are using the same chip set are not experiencing the same problems as we, I guess that the fix will have to come from Acer.

 

Re: HD Video Plays Slow | Video Conferencing BoD (Skype)

Now I'm confused. I'm reading tons of posts that say people are having no issues playing up to 1080p on their 751. Why do I seem to be the only person still having this issue?

Also, yes, now my 751 has started to crash randomly. I'm very disappointed in this piece of junk and it has been the source of much frustration for the last month.

I have tried virtually every file format there is, and WMP continues to BSOD the entire computer, MPC stutters, and QT takes five minutes to load then also stutters during playback. I really am going to dropkick the piece of crap and spend $600 on the Asus Lap/Netbook that has gotten so much attention.

Also of note: Acer support is the worst support I have ever dealt with. I complained about HD load issues and they want me to spend $5/hr with their specialized tech support. Why should I spend another $100 on support for a machine that's under three years' worth of warranty? Anyone know how to force it to a point where it won't even boot into Windows so I can get a new one under the warranty?

 

For any of you following this thread, I found out the issue was Windows 7. Reverting back to Vista and re-installing everything from scratch (excluding 7 of course) solved all my issues.

Now time to see what games will play.