This EXACT SAME thing has happened to me. BRAND new 8250/XP-Home with the DVD drive and I'm getting speed problems.

Here is what I submited to Dell Support:

My DVD Drive seems to be malfuctioning. With many DVDs that I've gotten to work on many other computers and DVD players will not play on my drive. It makes a frequent powering up and power down sound as if it looses power and can't not get up to speed to read it. After 4 minutes it finially does recognize the disk, but the playback of the movie is VERY stutery and will play for 4 seconds with about a 2minute pause for the next few frames; it is aweful. I've tryed with these DVDs: Heat, Spider-Man, Ice-Age, The Mummy Returns, Scorpian King to name a few. All work on my girlfriends Dell with has the same DVD drive as I.

This is complete bs as I've paid A LOT of money for this system and I don't need my DVD not working and have to send the whole thing back.. Someone from Dell should please look into this right away because someone is not testing the systems properly.

UNhappy customer at the moment.

Oh and I'm defininatly making an posts requesting help everyday as well as calling Dell EVERYDAY until this is fixed or something is done about it, I didn't pay $3500 with a 4 year warranty for a fast computer with a hugeo monitor that I can't even watch my movies on..

An update of yesterday.

I thought I was lucky today as I got the Dell Technical Support today on my question. I took only 20 minutes to get in (thanks to my hands-free phone and to the "toll free" number that you pay anyway in your bill).

They finally came up with a SOLUTION that  DOES NOT WORK. They proposed a patch named 'r53550.exe' that was supposed to work with my Dim8250+XP.

Did anyone tried this thing with benefit ? Does anyone know about any adverse effect that this patch may add on top of not working at all ? 

Support : any other (bright) idea ?

Thanks for the insight !

Jean

Hi Jean,
I got your IM, un-installing and re-installing your DVD software should have not adverse effects on your system, whether it will correct your problem I cannot say for sure, sorry.
The Patch Dell suggested may be a firmware update for your drive, Dell does at times release these to correct problems with the devices or to add additional support for a new feature.
Click on the CD/RW gif in my post and scroll to Section 6-3, article 25, these are some posts from members that stated what "fixed" their problems.
Dell_cody suggested members check the DMA setting for the drive and also to apply the 4.60 ASPI layer from Roxio`s site, some members have used this one and also the latest which I believe is 4.7X.
At the moment this is about all I have to offer, if you continue to have problems, exercise your warranty, be firm but polite and keep calling.
Best Regards

Jeff

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CD/RW Link

Update from my previous messages

While waiting on the phone for tech support, last news of the saga :

I called yesterday afternoon the support as their first solution (the patch) did not work. They went to the conclusion that the hardware was in cause and said that they will provide me with a spare DVD drive.

I received it today before lunch ! Great job !

Well, it did not solve the problem : very same symptoms.

 

 

 

 

Well, well, well ! This damned thing is still not working and DELL "support" is exercising my patience. None of the tips provided by the censor, sorry the moderator, has worked so far. Hopefully I have other places to play music and films (cannot rely on Dell products for that). I will drop the whole dumb box to the next store open on Saturday.

This problem sounds identical to the problem I am having with my DVD-ROM drive.  I have had my computer for slightly over 6 weeks.  DVD's play with pixelation distortion every few minutes.  Music CD's will show as playing, but I can hear no sounds. The drive seems to speed up and slow down until it eventually stops altogether.  This drive was the $20.00 extra DVD ROM drive they were offering in conjunction with the purchase of the DVD Burner for my Dimension computer.   I have performed all the troubleshooting techniques to no avail.  I believe that it is a hardware problem, hence the 'special' offer. My DVD Burner works great, but I have been disappointed with the DVD ROM.  There's somthing fishy about this drive I would suspect.