Solutions to Fix Video Playing in Slow Motion on Windows

Eleanor Reed

Aug 03, 2023 • Filed to: Recoverit Topic • Proven solutions

In movies, slow motion is used to highlight tension, drama, emotion, and engage spectators. But sitting next to your laptop and watching slow motion on a YouTube channel or a video not playing at all can only be annoying. How to fix slow motion in the videos that were not supposed to have it?

Part 1. Why is Video Playing in Slow Motion?

In 99,99% cases, it comes from your hardware. High-resolution videos may exhaust its capacities very quickly. Your machine cannot process heavy video files on many levels:

• It can't handle them as its RAM is insufficient.
• If not the RAM issue, the graphics card may cause problems.
• Both can be OK, but the card may need a drivers update.
• In the end, your Windows may be simply stuck due to some pending updates.

Reserve the left 0,01% for the slow network connection, and you are ready to read about the securest solutions to those issues.

Part 2. Methods to Fix the Videos Playing in Slow Motion Issue

Instead of turning off your laptop, you can try one of the seven magic ideas to fix that weird slow-motion effect or revive a not playing video.

All of them are simple and do not require either advanced IT knowledge or any particular preparations. The first three solutions help with streaming video problems. The other four are universal but especially relevant for playing offline videos.

Solution 1. Do You Have Enough Fast Internet?

Let us start with the 0,01% to exclude it from the beginning. Streaming, YouTube videos, and social media content may be affected by network failures.

The optimal parameters for a cozy cinema evening are the following, depending on what you want to watch:

• only Facebook and social media videos that tend to be small: still at least 500 Kbps is necessary
• for high-quality YouTube videos: starting from 1 Mbps
• for streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, BBC documentary, etc.: starting from 5Mbps

You need to check two factors here.

First, check the internet speed that your current provider offers. You can find it in your contract, monthly bill, or the provider's web page. For slow WiFi, it often helps to use Ethernet with a cable instead. If the speed is still below the limit, consider another internet provider. But previously, you must ensure that your PC can handle a better bandwidth.

For this, you have to check the quality of your network interface card. It is the part of your PC that is responsible for internet speed. Even if the provider gives you a streaming highway, your outdated network card may ruin it.

Press Windows "Start" button, and type "Network and Sharing Center," then select "Change Adapter Settings."

Click on the connection you are currently using.

You are eager to watch a high-resolution movie on a streaming channel, that is not enough. You will need to upgrade the card.

Solution 2. Temporary Files in Your Browser

If you watch online videos, the reason can lie in your browser. It becomes full of browsing history and cookies. That is not good for its performance in general. The browser fails to load new videos fast enough.

Depending on the browser, you will need to go through different steps.

Windows Explorer:

Click on the "Tool," the gear button in the top right corner, then find "Safety" and "Delete browsing history."

Chrome:

Click on the three-doted "More" button in the upper right corner. proceed to "More tools" and then find "Clear browsing data." It includes both cookies and browsing history. You'll see two tick boxes, respectively. You can use the time range filter or erase the whole data.

Firefox:

Find the three-bar "Menu" button in the upper-right. You need "Preferences," then "Privacy & Security," "Cookies and Site Data," and at last "Manage Data." You have a choice between deleting only selected websites' data or hitting the "Remove All Shown" options. You can keep the history: you may need it later. Removing websites you watched any videos on must suffice.

Do not forget to click "Save Changes" and then "OK" to finish the action.

Solution 3. Give Your Browser More Free Space

Your browser may be struggling to play high-resolution videos due to the high load of the CPU. Access the Task Manager from the Start bar, click "More details." You will see which applications use a lot of CPU. When you close high-consuming applications, the overall performance will jump.

You can go to the application you want to close and make it shut down by clicking on "X," as you would normally do.

If you see a lot of troubling applications, you can close them directly from the Task Manager. Click on the task and then press the "End task" button in the lower right corner. Alternatively, right-click on the task and select "End task" from the drop-down menu.

Running an Internet browser and a video player is particularly difficult for your PC. If your machine is not particularly powerful, avoid this combination. Any other applications that have to do with editing big files, videos and pictures, as well as programming editors, video conferencing software, etc. may slow down your CPU.

In this case, you'll see either a slow-motion effect or the video won't be playing at all.

Solution 4. Help Your Graphics Card to Update Itself

Before you can stipulate that your graphics card is actually unable to deal with high-quality videos, check the drivers. It can be that they need some fresh wind, not the hardware.

Open the Start Menu, and type "device manager." Inside it, click on "Display adapter" and then click on the graphics card. With the right-click, call the drop-down menu and select "Update driver."

A pending graphics card driver update may sometimes be visible in the Windows Updates center. You can access it from the Start. You will need to activate these updates to help them happen.

If you are still not convinced that you've done everything, try the last method.

Back to the Device manager, access the graphics driver properties, and note the version installed on your PC.

Compare it with the latest available driver version by visiting the manufacturer's website. Most popular graphics cards are produced by (click to open the page with the latest drivers' releases):

• NVIDIA
• AMD
• Intel

Suppose you'll find out that you do not have the newest driver; download and install it manually. The installation of a driver from the vendor's website is the same as installing any usual software application. Double-click on the .EXE file in the Download folder, answer any questions and finish the installation.

Solution 5. Shake Your Windows

If nothing from above helps, you have to fight with a serious problem. Three possible scenarios:

• you need to update Windows
• you need to revert your system update
• you need to perform a general troubleshooting

Apart from the graphics card drivers, browser, or Windows Media Player updates may be pending. Start them manually from the Windows update center.

But it also can be the other way around: a recently finished update made your PC slow. Or it somehow contradicts with its capacity to play videos, either online or in a player.

Yes, there is an Undo button even for Windows updates! But you have to create this button manually before an Update happens. Not quite handy, but it works. It is called a restore point.

Click the "Start" button and type "restore point." It will open "System properties" windows. Find the "System protection" tab and click the "Create" button. Type in the name and hit "Create," and then close system properties.

Now, if you find the latest updates suspicious, open the system properties again, click "Restore," and select the point you've created before. The system will run some checks and ask you to confirm the restoration. The procedure returns your system configuration to the selected time point in the past, thus, reverting any changes.

You can also use the native Windows 10 troubleshooting option.

Use the "Start" to access it by searching for "troubleshooting." It will open the respective workspace in the Control Panel.

If the "Video Playback" is in the list, click on it and go through the troubleshooting. You will only need to press confirmation buttons.

Solution 6. Consider Using a Video Repair Software

Before moving on to the most painful solution, the number 7, make sure that you have repaired a corrupted video file. If your video won't play or has no sound or undesirable slow-motion effect, it can be simply broken.

There are so many things that can damage your video that this possibility should not be ignored. Starting from the recording process and including all the succeeding steps, file transfer, file read, conversion, compression, etc., the video can become corrupted quite simply.

In this case, you can repair the corrupted video online with Wondershare Repairit Online for free, no download, and takes seconds to fix the broken video! It supports MOV/MP4/3GP video files to be repaired quickly.

Step 1. Select your corrupted video

Pick up the broken video from your file manager

Step 2. Waiting for the video to be repaired

The blue bar will show the progress.

Step 3. Save your repaired video

Save the repaired video to your PC. Finish!

If your corrupted video is larger than 200MB, then download and install Wondershare Repairit video repair software. It is available to repair videos in no limit size and supports 10 formats of video files.

Step 1. Upload broken video

To start, you need to import the video file into the Wondershare Repairit application. Use the "+Add" button to open your file manager. Search for the folder where you store the video files. Select one of them or pick multiple files by holding the "Shift" button on your keyboard.

Step 2. Scan videos

Repairit will begin with scanning your files and extracting important meta-data. It will display this information next to each imported video. At this stage, you can either remove all videos from the repair queue or add more.

Step 3. Repair your videos

By pressing the "repair" button in the lower-left corner, you will initiate the restoration of all files in the list. In a few seconds, a pop-up confirming the completion will appear. Click "OK."

Step 4. Check the result

You may proceed to save videos at this stage. But it is highly recommended to preview them before doing so. Use the "Preview" button next to each repaired video.

If the video still has any problems, click on the "Advanced Repair" link on the bottom.

Step 5. Advanced repair: add sample video

If any videos could not be repaired, saving won't be available. It still does not mean they cannot be rescued at all! You will need to show Wondershare Repairit an example of a "healthy" working video. Click on the "Advanced Repair," then browse your file system to find a match. The sample video must be playable and made with the same camera. Then hit "Next."

Step 6. Repair using a sample video

Shortly after the start, you will see the same pop-up reporting the successful repair.

Step 7. Save your repaired videos

You can either save the videos one by one by clicking "Save" next to each title. For more convenience, use "Save All" on the bottom. Select a proper folder in your file system and finish the repair operation by hitting "Save" in the dialogue window.

Voil: you are done!

Solution 7. Hardware Updates

You tried it hard, but your videos are still not playing or run in slow motion. That means your PC needs a serious change. You have to upgrade the hardware.

Why is it not optimal? Well, because it is the only option you have to pay money for!

So, which parts of the computer are responsible for a pleasant spectator experience? The answer is the RAM and graphics card.

1 GB RAM is the lowest level you should have to play HD videos.

Extending your RAM means buying a few RAM modules and inserting them into existing slots. Take your time to check how many free slots you have before ordering more. You can replace old modules that have less memory with more powerful ones.

With most Windows PCs, you can manage to install the RAM modules by yourself. You will need a screwdriver and a vacuum cleaner to remove the dust. The last one is even optional: But you do not open your PC twice!

And remember to turn the power off, and additionally unplug anything connected to your machine.

If you are not really into DIY, or you run out of the free slots, you can use an eGPU. It stands for "external graphics processing unit." It is basically a mighty graphics card inside a separate casing with its own power supply. You can connect it to your PC with an adapter.

External graphics units are popular among gamers. If you are one, you'll benefit from it twice!

The Bottom Line

The reasons for an unexpected slow-motion effect can be divided into a few groups:

• network speed related:
• browser related, like too heavy browsing history or too many saved cookies
• CPU related: not enough capacity to handle video files
• graphics card limitations
• Windows related, like pending or already deployed updates
• hardware-related: not enough RAM

For each of the problems, there is a solution. For fixing offline videos quickly, use video repair software. You'll save you time instead of trying each solution out.