Video playback takes all cpu time

dpl · #1 24th May 2005, 12:17 AM

I've been using Fedora Core 3 for a couple of months, and whenever I play video (i.e. divx, mpg, whichever) it maxes out my cpu. This then makes the video really choppy, and I can't watch the videos.
I'm using a Dell Inspiron 5100 laptop, with a 2.4 GHz p4 processor, 512 megs of ram and an ati 32meg video card. With all this, watching a movie should really take very little of the resources.
Does anyone know what is wrong here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
- dpl

ShibbyCoder · #2 24th May 2005, 04:14 AM

mm..your video memory is less than anything i'd brag about as i upgraded to a 64 mb card about 2001, and my parents are using that outdated hardware. so that COULD be a problem, but i wouldn't think it would be for simple video playback. you probably have the codecs installed, otherwise no video would play.. but you should still check them. what video player are you using to play the video files?

dpl · #3 24th May 2005, 05:33 AM

The video card isn't the problem, since I've used it with windows and other linux distros. It doesn't matter what player I use, though the ones I've tried are xine, totem, and mplayer. All of these have the same problem with video playback taking full cpu.
- dpl

dpl · #4 2nd June 2005, 06:39 AM

Alright, I feel like an idiot. I just opened up my laptop this afternoon and cleaned 1/2 cm of dirt off of the front of the heat sink. That was the problem. The only problem.
So, if anyone has a laptop that's about 2 years old, has lived in a university dorm or cheap ass apartment during that time, and hasn't cleaned out their computer, I'd suggest doing so.
After I cleaned it all out, the computer is running cool (obviously) and because of that, it is running nice and smoothly.
I didn't realize that I could overheat to a point of bad performance but not crashing... ah well, learned something new today.
- dpl

w5set · #5 2nd June 2005, 07:08 AM

it's called cpuspeed
and it was doing it's job of throttling back the cpu because of heat buildup--ain't ya glad it was slow instead of going into heat exhaustion?? (like snafu--fubar--kaput cpu)
if running a laptop in a dorm/cheepassed apartment I would type in occasionally
service cpuspeed status
just to make sure it was running--that and the lm-sensors thingie....(if supported)
well I would if I lived there--or even had a laptop--but I do blow out the cigarette ashes once in a while on this desktop too.