My computer behaves like it is running out of memory when playing videos.

[Shabakthanai]

During a Netflix movie or a youtube video, the video is stalled from time to time as though the memory is used up. Kinfocenter indicates that I am using approximately 1GB of 16+GBs of memory when this is happening. Do you recognize this strange behavior? What might the problem be? Thanks!

[GreyGeek]

I don't have NetFlix, but I use YouTube a LOT and I've watched clips of a few seconds to movies of over 3 hours. Most do not stall with buffering icons, but a few do. I am running FireFox 32.0.3 on 6GB of RAM. I am using default settings on pipelining and async.video. (URL=about:config)

I've come to the conclusion that buffering doesn't have anything to do with the length of the video, but I suspect it has to do with the video's popularity. The more people watching it the more likely it will buffer.

EDIT: and, at noon and 6 to 10PM there are a lot more users hitting YouTube, and the Internet in general. While you are running a lagging YouTube video open a second tab and to an Internet speed test to see how big is the bandwidth you are working with.

[Shabakthanai]

It has never happened before and happens all the time now. Every video. I am currently playing an old series called "Bones". It is hard to believe that it is in such great demand. It has been on for more than a year. In fact I am watching the series for the second time. It happens on each episode. It never happened throughout the entire series last time. Does this happen on your 6GB of ram?

I haven't yet checked the ram to see if it may be defective, but there are 2 8GB sticks. If one were working and the other was damaged, would that cause the problem I am experiencing? In any event thanks for the input. What should I be looking for, or is there a way to test to see if your prognosis is correct? Thanks my friend! Could corrupted Adobeflash cause this problem?

I don't have NetFlix, but I use YouTube a LOT and I've watched clips of a few seconds to movies of over 3 hours. Most do not stall with buffering ions, but a few do. I am running FireFox 32.0.3 on 6GB of RAM. I am using default settings on pipelining and async.video. (URL=about:config)

I've come to the conclusion that buffering doesn't have anything to the length of the video, but I suspect it has to do with the video's popularity. The more people watching it the more likely it will buffer.

[millusions]

I dont think it's a RAM issue. when its' buffering its fetching data to display. or these days it automatically lowers the quality of the clip depending on bandwidth - if quality is set to auto.
try lowering the quality of the clip, say to 240p, and see if that helps.
also, you can see on the progress bar, how it downloads a minute or two ahead to the video 'place' its currently on...

also i find firefox is a bit retarded when it comes to youtube, like if you want to leave a comment, it never works. finding things a lot smother with chrome.

[millusions]

btw. my Dell xps m1730 has only 2 GB DDR2 Ram, and i often have a youtube window in the corner while doing web stuffs, thanks to the 1920x1200 monitor,
and i havent found a reason yet to upgrade the Ram, this really suprised me! i think we're just used to lots of ram (i mean just for basic things, not high res photo editing etc.).

[GreyGeek]

I dont think it's a RAM issue. when its' buffering its fetching data to display. or these days it automatically lowers the quality of the clip depending on bandwidth - if quality is set to auto.
try lowering the quality of the clip, say to 240p, and see if that helps.

Most of the time switching to a lower quality video can help, but not always.

also, you can see on the progress bar, how it downloads a minute or two ahead to the video 'place' its currently on...

I've experienced buffering when the gray "lead" is significantly ahead of the the red bar, which would indicate that the trip from the buffer to the screen is where the bottle neck is.
Also, I've had 720p videos 2 and 3 hours long play without lag, while a 240p clip two or three minutes long lags considerably.
I think part of it may be how closely to the standard protocol some videos adhere. Professionally done videos rarely lag for me, but DYI stuff is more prone to.

also i find firefox is a bit retarded when it comes to youtube, like if you want to leave a comment, it never works. finding things a lot smother with chrome.

I tried Chrome but didn't like its restriction features.

[millusions]

really? i dont think ive experienced that,, the slowest cpu i use is 2 GHz intel core duo....
not counting ipad 3, which is 1GHz dual core with 1 GB of RAM, on the ipad, it drops quality to shocking rather than stutter