Help anyone any good with computers?

[cobbers]

Purchased a notebook computer this weekend for use in the van. All set up and working fine. However, voice files, webstreaming, skype etc sound as though whoever is speaking has inhaled a mouthful of helium. It's driving me nuts. I am on windows XP and the sound whatsit is realtek. Any ideas??

 

[Merlin53]

It's probable the manufacturers introduction instructions on set up after you started the PC up for the first time.

Go to the help section, and type in your problem, the help section will give you the answer. I know it's time consumming but if you persevere you will get the answer.

It will also help you to understand the 'ins and outs' of your various software applications. (There is no easy solution to your problem as listed).

 

[Northwood]

I would suggest to take it back to the retailer, It sounds like there is something wrong with the sound card.

 

[RogerP]

check out your Audio settings , sounds like either they are not correct or as said your sound card is faulty.

you may also need to check out the Browser settings as these may need changing espiecially for Skype

When you say a notebook , is it one of these mini notebooks about the size of an A5 piece of paper? rather than a true laptop?

Reason for saying is that these mini notebooks are really just web browsing tools and dont often come with quality (if at all) add ons such as audio hardware. they look good on paper but as a viable PC they're not so briliant

 

[Dave_374330759]

It's more than likely that you've got a slow connection or you are in an area where there is a high usage. Nearly all broadband connections have a contention ration of 50:1 which means that up to 50 people can be using the bandwidth at the same time as you and if you live in a place where broadband usage is quite high then there is a better than even cahnce that the conention ratio is higher. Add to that you are either using a wi-fi connection or even worse a dongle then there isn't enough bandwidth so you are getting chopped up sound. Try it out at midnight when its a bit quieter on the web. Thre worst times on the web are 4-7 in the evening or when there is rubbish on the TV (most nights in my opinion)And some providers will do traffic shaping and invoke the "reasonable use" clause when traffic is high and you'll get restricted bandwidth or slow internet connections.

The problem with speech and video is that it has to be transmitted in real time and usually goes into a buffer so that that it can feed the output a bit slower than the speed at which it arrives so is easily corrupted and very noticable when you've got a slow connection. Data on the other hand comes in little packets and all you'll notice is a slowing down or odd pause when downloading.

I'd doubt very much if it's the computer unless you've got a very slow processor and a very small memory - I'm surprised that you managed to buy a computer running windows XP as the latest software is Windows 7 and most stuff had Vista before windows 7 and after XP.

 

[Steve_374341117]

Having beeen looking for a notebook myself recently I noticed that all the ones I saw were running on XP, not Vista. Perhaps it's a Notebook thing!!

 

[cobbers]

Having beeen looking for a notebook myself recently I noticed that all the ones I saw were running on XP, not Vista. Perhaps it's a Notebook thing!!

Thanks for all your comments. Problem now fixed, it was a setting in the realtec audio device that needed changing. Great machine by the way, Dell inspiron 1011.