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Living Room / Re: Sound problems
« Last post by oblivion on December 20, 2011, 10:57 AM »I think I may have found the problem. (Yes, it took ages. Mostly because I stopped worrying about it and lived with it.)
I switched off the performance monitor on the PC ages ago, and promptly forgot I'd done it.
Fast forward a bit... I put Process Tamer on my netbook, found it didn't work, eventually discovered that it needed the performance monitor service to be enabled in order to function, switched it back on, PT worked, all was well with the world. Well, the netbook, anyway.
I remembered this, randomly, while I was watching Process Lasso updating itself on my desktop machine last weekend. PL seemed to work (on Vista) but in the early days of my ownership of my netbook, I tried PL and it actually crashed at install time. Tried it several times, consulted with PL's author, couldn't fix it, gave up. Found myself wondering if that was also something to do with the performance monitor service, even though PL seemed okay on the desktop box.
So I switched the service back on. No obvious difference. Except that Mediamonkey now plays MP3s perfectly.
I still get occasional stutters in games, but it's only when the system's VERY (graphically) busy and nothing that's particularly unusual -- particularly in a nearly 5-year-old machine.
So I think that was it. File it away: whatever they tell you, the performance monitor service does stuff that helps everything else work better. And the odd bits of advice out there on the net that say that if you don't use it, you don't need it are just plain misguided.
I switched off the performance monitor on the PC ages ago, and promptly forgot I'd done it.
Fast forward a bit... I put Process Tamer on my netbook, found it didn't work, eventually discovered that it needed the performance monitor service to be enabled in order to function, switched it back on, PT worked, all was well with the world. Well, the netbook, anyway.
I remembered this, randomly, while I was watching Process Lasso updating itself on my desktop machine last weekend. PL seemed to work (on Vista) but in the early days of my ownership of my netbook, I tried PL and it actually crashed at install time. Tried it several times, consulted with PL's author, couldn't fix it, gave up. Found myself wondering if that was also something to do with the performance monitor service, even though PL seemed okay on the desktop box.
So I switched the service back on. No obvious difference. Except that Mediamonkey now plays MP3s perfectly.
I still get occasional stutters in games, but it's only when the system's VERY (graphically) busy and nothing that's particularly unusual -- particularly in a nearly 5-year-old machine.
So I think that was it. File it away: whatever they tell you, the performance monitor service does stuff that helps everything else work better. And the odd bits of advice out there on the net that say that if you don't use it, you don't need it are just plain misguided.
I think I'll stick with what I've done. This was a favour to a friend, not something I do for a living or would feel I could charge for, and there's no way I can afford that sort of thing, especially not this close to Christmas.
to install without impacting lots of other stuff. Last time I did them without thinking, lots of stuff -- including DC software -- broke so I just ran a system restore and hid the updates. After the event I discovered Susan Bradley's PatchWatch recommending not doing them for pretty much those reasons... and then I find that she's now saying the October 13 .net4 patches can't really be skipped. 
)
I'll see if I can elbow my code into Winbuttons, mostly because I like the idea of a graphic button. 
I am enlightened -- thanks!