audio and video issues

[decidedly average]

Hi there, for a while ive been having issues with my laptop, ive got an acer aspire 5100, and ive had it for a few years so i probably need a new one but im a student and im afraid bills come before shiny new toys.. For a good few months, every so often when i am playing music on itunes or spotify my laptop will completely freeze and let out a continuous, loud, drone, and not turn off unless i remove the battery. This doesnt happen all the time, but the frequency is increasing, and its getting pretty bad- not to mention annoying! Also for the past few days i have noticed if i try to stream any video the picture freezes, then jumps, then freezes. I can momentarily solve the problem by pausing or restarting the video, but it always ends up doing the same. The audio is fine along side it, but the video is impossible to watch. Im wondering if its something to do with my sound/graphics card?? Although i had a whole new hardrive installed around 8 months ago, and the laptop has never really been back to normal.. I just dont know what i need to do to fix the problems?! Any help would be greatly appreciated!!, Thanks!

[muppet rebecca]

New hard drive installed? Care to explain in more detail? That could possibly be where all the troubles lie.

You got a cooling stand to put your laptop on? Another thing could be your laptop overheating which is a pretty common enough thing. Also cooling stands aren't costly to buy either.

If your laptop is freezing on the use of the ipod and videos then it doesn't really come across as graphics card. Now if the picture blurred or only appeared as black & white then it could be along with numerous other things. However we wont go into that because it's irrelevant to your problem in this moment in time.

No I say at the moment it seems hard drive especially since it's never been right since the install.

[Plastic Nev]

Further to Rebecca's post, why was a new hard drive fitted? it may well be something else failing on the main motherboard, being a laptop, the video is part of that board and not a separate card, it could also be a RAM problem so have you added more since you got the laptop, or is it just what the machine came with?

A lot depends on why the hard drive was changed in the first place, let us know that then we may know what or where to go next.

Nev.