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I cannot figure this out, but when ever I playback music or MP3 music, using an MP3 player like Sonique I sometimes tend to get a dropout or pauses in the playback, they happen so very quickly, but its very noticable.

The faults would be like a split second pause, a scratchy sort of interference (like the CPU had been interrupted). I havent tried this playing back a CD, but it mainly happens with MP3 files. Also I'm running 2000 Pro, Pemtium III 500, 384MB RAM.

Back in the day when I bought my p2 400 it used to do this occasionaly so maybe it is processing power?A CD shouldnt do it though even on a pentium 133.Do you have other software running in the background that might be pulling resources occasionally?AntiViral software can cause jumpy playback sometimes.

Hi Wicked many thnks for the fast speedy reply Well yes I do have other programs running in the background like my Firewall, Win Fax is on standby but not quite sure if that would be running like a firewall. Also I've got an external USB HDD attached to the back of the PC, but also not sure if this would affect it.

If it's Sonique 2.0, it's still in Alpha last time I checked, which means it isn't going to run very well.

Try foobar2000, great audio quality and uses virtually no system resources.

www.foobar2000.org

I'd recommend the following settings...

Under Playback, select 16 bit fixed point and strong ATH noise shaping.

Under output, select Kernel Streaming.

One thing you forgot to mention is your system specs, the most important being your audio card. Kind tough to help if we don't know what you have, what OS you're using and what version of Sonique.

Tazdevl, I am using a Creative Sound Blaster Live series card.
PC is an Intel PIII 500Mhz with 384MB RAM and using both Win 2000 Pro and 98SE. The 30GB Maxtor HDD on this PC is partitioned, so allowing me to have two OS's on it.

The version of Sonique I'm using is 1.96, though I did also try2.0 and used it as well. But this drop outs or sound problem happens in both versions.

I have a feeling that it's your player. I have had no problems at all playing MP3s in a Pentium 233 MMX system. I'm not familiar with the player that you're using, but had been using WinAmp ever since it was first released. Gave up on it when they released the 3.0 version. That new version sucks, IMHO!

One question. Are you playing the MP3 files off your hard drive or from a CD? If from a CD, then that could be a strong contender for the source of your problem!

Well, that happens to me too (and even with AVI's). VERY annonying. I use WinAmp/MediaPlayer Classic, allthough the problem happens no matter what app I use-I'm guessing it's my sound board (an old Game Theater XP). I have a 1.7GHz P4, so cpu power shouldn't be an issue. Besides, everything plays back 100% perfectly under Linux, when I have a heck of alot more running at once

Wait...then that means it's a Windows problem!

I never encountered this problem on my PII 266 also running 2000 Pro, and worked like a charm.

I've always used Sonique and personally find it better than Windows Media Player and also slightly better than Winamp, tome its probably the best sounding MP3 player out there.

The music files are actually stored on the HDD, but I havent played back a music CD as yet to see if this problem occurs with that,i.e from the playback of a CD.

Could it be a setting in the CMOS, though I dont want to play around with this.

I haven't seen this on my Celeron 366 PCs (with 256 MB of RAM and Win98), so I doubt it's the CPU. I'd suggest that you try playing an MP3 in Windows Media Player and see what happens.

I have tried playing the MP3 files back in WM Player and still backto square one, no changes or improvement.

Just wondering if it could be the firewall causing this.

It could be the firewall. There are other possibilities, too. BTW, is DMA enabled for all of your drives? If it isn't, you should enable it. Read this to learn how to enable DMA.