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iBook internet video lag

W

Whedonist

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 9, 2008
7
0
I had an iBook G4 1Ghz. I rarely had any problems watching internet videos on sites like Hulu or YouTube. I passed the iBook along to a friend when I got a new MacBook, and he has been unable to watch Web videos. They play, but the audio is ahead of the sound. He's tried it on a few different connections, but they all do this in both Safari 4 and Firefox 3. Clearing the browser cache helped a little, but it hasn't gone away.

Does anybody know what's causing this?
 
You aren't alone

You aren't alone at all friend! I've been searching the internet most of the evening tonight trying to find something, but this is the only post I can find related to this problem.

Not to be a jerk, but I've looked into the system requirements on Hulu and Youtube. A 1Ghz G4 iBook isn't too old to be playing videos online.

Youtube requirements:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=78358

Hulu requirements:
http://www.hulu.com/support

My mother was having the same issues. What bugs me is that I've used the computer on Hulu and Youtube previously without any issue. I cannot thing of what changed to make this happen. So I maxed out the RAM on the iBook 1Ghz G4 (running 10.5.6) to 1.125GB (buying a 1GB stick off of newegg.com), downloading Safari 4 Beta, the most recent Firefox and updated to the newest version of Adobe Flash Player as well. Nothing worked... at most it is slightly smoother. I wish I could say I've had more luck with this, but I haven't. Hopefully someone else out there might know something. I'll keep checking back. Good luck.
 
jaymason27 said:
You aren't a lone at all friend! I've been searching the internet most of the evening tonight trying to find something, but this is the only post I can find related to this problem.
Click to expand...

At first, I thought it was the Safari 4 beta, but Firefox disproved that theory. I'm glad to know there's someone else with this issue, and hopefully a solution will turn up soon!
 
Whedonist said:
At first, I thought it was the Safari 4 beta, but Firefox disproved that theory. I'm glad to know there's someone else with this issue, and hopefully a solution will turn up soon!
Click to expand...

I have my suspicions that OSX 10.5.6 is to blame. What is that iBook running? The update was originally released December 15th of 2008. Knowing her, she didn't actually do the update until recently. But after asking, she said she doesn't remember other than the computer only started acting up about a month or so ago. Which sounds like the same time frame your ex-iBook started too.
 
jaymason27 said:
I have my suspicions that OSX 10.5.6 is to blame. What is that iBook running? The update was originally released December 15th of 2008. Knowing her, she didn't actually do the update until recently. But after asking, she said she doesn't remember other than the computer only started acting up about a month or so ago. Which sounds like the same time frame your ex-iBook started too.
Click to expand...
This iBook runs 10.4.11, so no Leopard updates to blame on this end.
 
i've got the same ibook, and i don't really have a problem running online video (we've got a macbook available, but the ibook works just as well so we never got the adapter cable for the macbook).
whoever said it was too old of a computer is an idiot, sorry to say. also sorry to say i don't know what the problem is. i occasionally have a problem with sound syncing up when i'm watching on megavideo, but usually that is the problem of the video (i'll find the same episode, different video, and it'll be fine). same with hulu... sometimes it'll be really laggy, but if you give them a couple days to fix it, it'll work.

sorry i can't be more help.
 
jaymason27 said:
You aren't alone at all friend! I've been searching the internet most of the evening tonight trying to find something, but this is the only post I can find related to this problem.

Not to be a jerk, but I've looked into the system requirements on Hulu and Youtube. A 1Ghz G4 iBook isn't too old to be playing videos online.

Youtube requirements:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=78358

Hulu requirements:
http://www.hulu.com/support

My mother was having the same issues. What bugs me is that I've used the computer on Hulu and Youtube previously without any issue. I cannot thing of what changed to make this happen. So I maxed out the RAM on the iBook 1Ghz G4 (running 10.5.6) to 1.125GB (buying a 1GB stick off of newegg.com), downloading Safari 4 Beta, the most recent Firefox and updated to the newest version of Adobe Flash Player as well. Nothing worked... at most it is slightly smoother. I wish I could say I've had more luck with this, but I haven't. Hopefully someone else out there might know something. I'll keep checking back. Good luck.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that should be plenty given the OS and the RAM upgrade. You shouldn't have any issues with paging the HDD, and as long as you aren't running close to filling up your HDD, I wouldn't be able to think of any reason why that's happening. Short of something wrong with your internet connection. :(
 
jtgotsjets said:
sorry i can't be more help.
Click to expand...

No worries, knowing that I'm not crazy (that the iBook was working just fine a couple months ago) is helpful enough. Thanks for the support


Jpoon said:
Yeah, that should be plenty given the OS and the RAM upgrade. You shouldn't have any issues with paging the HDD, and as long as you aren't running close to filling up your HDD, I wouldn't be able to think of any reason why that's happening. Short of something wrong with your internet connection. :(
Click to expand...

It's got 15GB free. I thought that might have been a problem too, but once I got my hands on the computer Friday it was the first thing I crossed off my list. The second was going for the RAM, which didn't do anything either. I'll try taking the computer to another internet source in a couple days to see if that makes any difference. That is the one thing I haven't tried to isolate 100% yet (whether it is the internet or computer). Thanks for the suggestion Jpoon
 
Any news on this issue? My sister had it happen a few months ago on her iBook too.

I'm wondering if Youtube has changed its flash player or something; a few tweaks that may not have gone down all that well economically on the OS X version of flash on PPC machines.

One question, if you download the H.264 video file* then try playing it in Quicktime, does that have serious lag for you, compared to how it used to run? A good test is usually a music video. Quicktime used to be fine, but now it's just as bad as Youtube for my sister.

* Click on "HQ" in youtube, open Safari activity window, and double click the largest item (e.g. "4.6MB out of 19MB") then it should download.
 
Well, on the iBook I was having troubles with, a reinstall of Tiger completely solved the issue. Hopefully nobody's hard drives are slowly failing...
 
I suppose that's easier to try before swapping the hard drive.

Using target disk mode through another Mac's hard drive actually did work fine playing youtube videos, so it's certainly the hard drive in some way or another.
 
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