Videos stall using USB2HDMI with Dell 9400 & Vista

[paulmarriott]

I’m experiencing persistent video/audio playback freeze-ups after installing a Startech USB2HDMI adapter, which incorporates the DisplayLink 165 chipset. The device hooks my HD TV HDMI1 input channel to my laptop via a USB 2.0 port.

Here’s my set-up:

PC: Dell Inspiron 9400/E1705 (born Apr ’07)
OS: Vista Home Premium SP2, 32-bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz
RAM: 4GB
GPU: Adapter: ATI Radeon Mobility x1400
Driver version: ATI 8.3600.0.0, released 14 Mar 2006
(displays managed by ATI Catalyst Control Centre 2.0)
Primary Display: 37” (1920 x 1080) Panasonic TX-L37E30B (via HDMI1)
Secondary Display: 17” (1440 x 900) WXGA laptop screen

Note: The ATI driver, whilst released a while ago, in March 2006, is the most up-to-date available; I’ve double-checked. The DisplayLink driver is the very latest (6.2 M2) release, of course.

The problem is that anywhere between, say, 5 seconds and 5 minutes of starting, video/audio playback stalls. The audio goes first, followed a few seconds later by the video. It happens on both laptop and TV screen alike... and even when there are no other apps running and maximum processing power is available to display rendering.

It happens across the board: online in IE9 and Firefox with YouTube and Vimeo Flash videos; offline in RealPlayer 15 with Flash and MP4 videos; and in Windows Media Player 11 with WMV videos. Even MP3 and WMA audios freeze.

If I close the app or webpage playing the video after a freeze-up and try again, there’s no sound right from the start; the video then freezes a few seconds later. Switching video size, particularly to full-screen, tends to initiate a stall.

Nothing the support guys at Startech advised me to do has fixed it. Neither did a reformat and clean Vista install I performed, just to make sure there was nothing amiss with my OS, which hadn’t been re-installed since I bought the laptop 5 years ago.

One thing they suggested I do, is install the USB2HDMI device on another PC... see if I get the same problem; I have an older, less powerful Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop running Windows XP.

I did this and experienced no similar playback freeze-ups... which suggests the device and driver are not at fault. Rather, there’s possibly some sort of incompatibility issue with my 9400 set-up. (It is running Vista’s ‘Aero’ mode, by the way, before anybody mentions it.)

I’ve attached Support Tool zips, below.

Appreciate your assistance.