RonB

I know very little about computer hardware, therefore, I need to ask a question.
Ever since I bought my computer, an emachines T6410 over a year ago, when it displays moving graphics, it runs for several seconds, stops for about a quarter of a second, continues at normal speed, stops for another quarter of a second, etc. This doesn't really bother me at all but I was wondering if a faster graphics card would eliminate that situation and show graphics smoothly.

My computer is running Windows XP SP2 Home with a AMD 64 Athlon 3200 processor. The graphics card is an ATI Radeon Xpress 200. Is it too slow for what I want? I've had no problem with it up to this point except for streaming (?) graphics.

Girderman

This is sometimes called "stuttering", to give you a word and is fairly common. Usually in my experience it is not always video software or hardware related, but is due to some other program using all the CPU in "spikes". Frequently this "other program" is malware and it is for this reason I suggest you look in that direction first.

What is your AV solution, and are your virus definition files updated ?

Are you current on your Windows Updates ?

When running a video, also run Task Manager by pressing "ctrl+alt+del" and look at the graph showing CPU usage. Does it show spikes at intervals, with the CPU usage shooting to 100 % ?

Also in Task Manager, look at the list of running processes and click the colum so that they are listed in order of amount of CPU usage. While running video, watch to see which process is running at 100% and report that here if/when you are able to tell.

RonB

OK, the CPU usage shows no 100% spikes. The highest it gets is 32% occasionally.

The list of running processes with Windows Media running is as follows:
System Idle Process 77 - 86
System 13
SunProtection Server 10
wmplayer 02

I use AVG Anti-Virus and it is up-to-date. It shows no problems.

Is there anything else I can check?

Girderman

Check Hardware Manager for yellow or red flags. Be sure to enable "Show Hidden Devices".

Check Event Manager for any errors that may give us some clues.

Try to duplicate your error by running whatever video causes the problem, and monitor CPU & memory usage. See if you can get a sense of what they are doing different (if at all) at the time of the error.

Also, while running the video, consider shutting down running processes and see if turning something off causes the problem to stop. This is on the chance that another applications (possibly your AV program) is interfering with normal video operation.

EDIT***
sunprotectionserver.exe seems to be associated with an anti-spyware program, and I have never heard of it. Personally, I would turn this one off first & see what happens. Also AVG, and any other non-essential process might be the magic trick.