Stubborn streaming playback problems

[Stephanie_1]

Hello all and thanks in advance.
I have a toshiba laptop with Win7 about 4 years old, it's not fancy, but all I use it for is picture storage and streaming Hulu, Netflix, comcast/xfinity online Bravo, etc.
Until about 2 weeks ago, it was playing these sites fine. This week suddenly Hulu and netflix are choppy. Oddly, Comcast/Xfinity is okay (lagging but noy choppy). Bravo is terrible almost not watchable.
It plays dvds perfect. This happens on both explorer and chrome. I've checked the wifi, the speed is ample, the videos completely buffered are still skipping on & out.
The past few days I've been googling til my eyes popped out and this is what I've done:
Cleared processes (only 5 running now and they are essential)
Disabled hardware acceleration on flash player & silverlight
Increased temp memory usage to unlimited
Defragged & cleaned
Made sure every single driver is updated
Updated all browsers and add-ons (except I'm not installing Win10)
Freed up a lot of memory
Did 3 different programs virus scans, then deleted 2. The remaining program (panda) is turned off unless I request a scan

What am I missing? Anyone have any suggestions?
I'm not techy-level computer savvy but I can figure my way around if you just tell me what to do.

 

[Willie0]

Some WiFi Connections turns out to be connected but its really not. You'd better have your router be check jsut to be sure.

 

[kayerobinson1]

sounds to me like the problem is with the websites and not your computer. If it plays dvds fine and Comcast is lagging then try this: go to speedtest.comcast.net/
and test your wifi connection and see how fast your connection is . If its too slow get a hold of Comcast thru their website: www.comcast.com. Customer Service is available 24/7 thru their Live Chat option and ask them to fix your speed so it streams right.

 

[Stephanie_1]

It's not the wifi, my speed tested as 27.1 download and 8.9 upload. My phone and roku are playing fine. The issue is still present after the video is buffered, like I said. Comcast will be if zero help it's a PC issue.
It's not the websites, my daughter tells me hers is fine- and I think it's highly unlikely that Hulu, Netflix, and Bravo all 3 started acting up on the same day out of nowhere

 

[Stephanie_1]

Bumping in hope of ideas?

 

[imrazor]

This may not work, but try disabling your add-ons one by one (or in small groups) to see if that improves your streaming. It could be a recent update for one of your add-ons, or maybe one of them is suddenly causing a lot of cpu/network usage. Use Task Manager to check your cpu & network usage while streaming video. Turn hardware acceleration back on in Silverlight and Flash. Make sure you're not running any file sharing/torrent programs while streaming and likewise that your housemates aren't either.

 

[Stephanie_1]

This may not work, but try disabling your add-ons one by one (or in small groups) to see if that improves your streaming. It could be a recent update for one of your add-ons, or maybe one of them is suddenly causing a lot of cpu/network usage. Use Task Manager to check your cpu & network usage while streaming video. Turn hardware acceleration back on in Silverlight and Flash. Make sure you're not running any file sharing/torrent programs while streaming and likewise that your housemates aren't either.

Thank you so much for the input I will try all of that! I do have a question though, everyone says to turn off hardware acceleration, so you think that's not necessary?

 

[imrazor]

Thank you so much for the input I will try all of that! I do have a question though, everyone says to turn off hardware acceleration, so you think that's not necessary?

Re: hardware acceleration. Turning off hardware acceleration is a valid step for troubleshooting video problems. However, once you've established that it's not the cause of the problem, you should probably go ahead and turn it back on. Otherwise you might have choppy performance or video tearing (that's what I always end up with when I turn off h/w acceleration.)