Audio skipping when using Flash in all browsers

[ReedTamaranda]

So this is a problem that's been bugging me for half a year or so. Usually, I start up a video on Youtube or the like and for about 2-3 minutes it runs smoothly, but after that, the audio skips a bit (kind of like a record skipping) and the RAM spikes. After the hiccup, it tends to run normally, but after a few seconds, it'll skip again and occasionally, the audio will degrade and all audio played back through the browser sounds heavily distorted until I restart.

I used to run Firefox, but when this problem popped up, I would get this:

so I switched to Opera, which worked for a little while, but the problem came back. I tried Safari and Chrome, but it's still there.

So here's all the troubleshooting I've done thus far:

1) Repaired/verified permissions
2) Uninstall/reinstall flash
3) Uninstall/reinstall java
4) Delete Flash preferences
5) Reinstall audio codecs

but nothing seems to work.

Here's my Macbook info:

Model Name: MacBook
Model Identifier: MacBook2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MB21.00A5.B07
SMC Version (system): 1.13f3
Sudden Motion Sensor:
State: Enabled
System Version: Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a)
Kernel Version: Darwin 9.8.0
Boot Volume: Macintosh HD

I'm running Leopard and I have installed all my software updates. I do run Adium, Mail, iCal, Quicksilver alongside Chrome, but even with all of those closed, it still persists. I have a feeling it's a hardware problem, so that's why I posted in this sub-forum.

So yeah, any help would be much much appreciated.

 

[NewGenAdam]

I'm getting this too - nothing's really helped... My guess would be it's to do with shoddy drivers/software and overheating, exacerbated by flash's awful inefficiency but really I have no clue.

The sooner we can move on from flash, the better. I don't think my dislike of it is unfair, or even undeserved. As a Mac user I've found it continually troublesome, and it doesn't seem like Adobe is in much of a rush to sort things out. Given its ubiquity now and, Adobe would hope, going forward, the fact they can't make a stable, efficient Mac version is quite unimpressive.

But for now, it's here. I do my best to avoid it; things like flashblock really help keep things smooth and cool when it comes to browsing, and I've opted in to Youtube's HTML5 trial. Small steps, but quietly helpful whilst I hope that the next release will iron out this creasy audio &c (story of my life)

 

[vistadude]

I think your computer is just old and slow. Either that or an apple update killed the speed. A reformat, of course, is not a great option, but I bet it would solve the problem.

The strange thing is that flash runs really well on old PC's. At least my pc is 4 years old and it loads videos extremely quick.

 

[ReedTamaranda]

I don't think it's the hardware, my sister has the same model and flash runs fine. I have an inclination it's a corrupt file somewhere, I really don't want to restore.

 

[NewGenAdam]

I think your computer is just old and slow. Either that or an apple update killed the speed. A reformat, of course, is not a great option, but I bet it would solve the problem.

The strange thing is that flash runs really well on old PC's. At least my pc is 4 years old and it loads videos extremely quick.

Here's the thing, I have a 2010 MacBook Pro - 13" 2.4GHz C2D, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA integrated GPU. Whilst it's not a Crysis-horse, it's certainly capable.

Perhaps I ought to reformat >=(

 

[vistadude]

ReedTamaranda:

You have a macbook 2.1, isn't that one of the older models. Mine is from 2009 and I think version 5.1 or 6.1, yours might be 3-4 years old, maybe one of the first generation intel macbooks. I seem to remember those being really loud and having poor heat management, but that's just my old memory.

NewGenAdam: Yours is definable quite new, a bit newer than mine, and with a better processor, ram, and video card then mine, so you should absolutely not have these problems. Was your laptop always slow on flash? Perhaps you have a bad hard disk. Can you run hardware diagnostic tests (not sure if these exists on apple laptops though)? Do you have a toshiba hard drive?

 

[ewilson6]

FlaSH runs just fine on your system. Look under system preferences and click on user accounts and click startup items and see what is starting up on your macbook.

Your computer is capable of running 200 applications at once with that much ram.

I don't think it is in any way shape or form a hardware issue at all.


Try installing flash 9.0 instead of the latest version.

It is probably the latest version of flash that is causing the system to act up.


--Eric

 

[NewGenAdam]

I know, it ought to be perfect. It's interesting you should suggest HDD issues, vistadude, because I suspected them myself. If I try to play a game in Windows it frequently hangs, then runs very slowly if I'm lucky. When it loads it's perfect. What's interesting, however, is if I trigger the free-fall accelerometer (by taking my MacBook for little high-ride) the game instantly loads...

I'm going to run a diagnostic, then maybe reinstall the OS if I can be bothered. Could do with sorting anyway

 

[ReedTamaranda]

ReedTamaranda:

You have a macbook 2.1, isn't that one of the older models. Mine is from 2009 and I think version 5.1 or 6.1, yours might be 3-4 years old, maybe one of the first generation intel macbooks. I seem to remember those being really loud and having poor heat management, but that's just my old memory.

NewGenAdam: Yours is definable quite new, a bit newer than mine, and with a better processor, ram, and video card then mine, so you should absolutely not have these problems. Was your laptop always slow on flash? Perhaps you have a bad hard disk. Can you run hardware diagnostic tests (not sure if these exists on apple laptops though)? Do you have a toshiba hard drive?

It does get loud and it heats up my entire room, but I have 2gb RAM installed (the max), so I don't think I should have any RAM problems. If I reinstalled the OS, would it mess up all my preferences?

And I tried rolling back to Flash 9, still have the same problems