well vlc stops for a couple seconds and plays again, safari when opening top sites the screen goes all scrambled and i get the beach ball alot and a whole lot of other s**t with slow loading times to very slow apps
and yes it is the one in the profile MACBOOK PRO MID 2009, WD SCORPIO BLUE HDD ( 500GIG, 5400 RPM, 8MB CACHE ) STOCK RAM 2GIG.
Ok...thanks a lot for the additional info. You asked about could the problem be too little ram or a slow hard drive.
I don't really think that it's a slow hard drive. A 5400rpm hard drive is pretty standard. For the most part...hard drive performance mostly impacts how fast applications open, how quickly information is retrieved, and how fast files or docs are found & opened. Not so many years ago 4200rpm hard drives were the norm in laptops (and were sort of slow)...and these days...folks can get 7200rpm drives for laptops. But again...I don't really think a slow hard drive is the problem.
As far as ram...I'm not sure how much you understand how ram works...so I'll explain briefly. Each & every program/application (as well as the Mac OS) has certain ram requirements. Depending on the application being used this can be a little or a lot of ram...and depending on how much ram is available...the amount of ram "assigned" to a particular application can vary. This is why some programs say that you should have a "minimum" amount of ram to run them...and then sometimes there is also a "recommended" amount of installed ram (but not always).
So if only one application is open...most/all of the computers available ram can be dedicated to that one application...and the application will use as much as is needs to be most efficient. If multiple applications are open at the same...then the ram starts to be "shared" by all the open applications. If too many applications are open at the same time...then it's possible that no one application is getting enough ram to be very efficient...and then that's when the "spinning beach-ball" can happen.
So what I'm saying is...I don't think that it's your hard drive...and possibly not the ram (depending on how many applications you have open at the same time)...remembering that some applications such as Photoshop & video editing programs can be big ram "hogs".
One exception regarding the hard drive is if it is almost full (let's say more than 80% full)...this can lead to problems. Also...I know that you have 2 gig of ram...which is not a ton...but it's certainly a respectable amount. I have 2 gig of ram in my MacBook Pro...and I typically have Safari, mail, Microsoft Messenger, Microsoft Office open (4 simultaneous programs open)...and sometimes 1-2 more programs...so as much as 5-6 programs open at the same time...without any problems.
I would also suggest that if you don't restart your computer very often (usually just put the computer to "sleep" when not used)...that you "Restart" it at least every 1-2 weeks...which I feel helps to keep the computer from getting "confused"...and thus sort of allows the computer to start "fresh". I know that when my computer seems to start getting slow & I get a lot of "beach-balls"...quitting all the programs & restarting the computer definitely helps.
I hope this makes sense & helps,
- Nick
p.s. My only other thought is...if this "video skipping" only happens during the few seconds another application is opening...is this really a big deal? If it was continuous skipping during the all the movie playback (regardless if an application was being opened or not)...I would definitely agree that this would be bothersome. But to eliminate the problem...just don't launch any applications while watching a movie or video.
