Choppy DVD performance--at end of rope!!!

Question

Hello...I have an Inspiron 8100 running with XP home edition, 384 megs of RAM and plenty of hard drive space. My DVD player is a Sony CRX810E...I'm writing because for the last few months I have been having a terrible time trying to play DVD's. I put a movie in, and it plays for a half hour or even 45 minutes, and then the video gets choppy, pauses indiscriminantly, and finally freezes. This happens with all kinds of DVD's...old, new, etc. I've downloaded and installed new Nvidia drivers, patched the WinDvd software several times, as well as reinstalled it, and have also had the same exact problems with Windows Media. So it doesn't appear to be the software player...but I am baffled as to where the problem might be coming from. My BIOS is up to date as well...do I need a firmware update?   Anyone have any ideas? It's really rather frustrating...I take a lot of long plane flights and I've finally gotten to the end of my rope...   thanks in advance for any help...

bacillus · Answer

Have you checked to make sure that your optical drive hasn't slipped into PIO mode?

tman1000 · Answer

thanks for your reply...I did check to see that DMA was enabled, and it indeed has always been. I actually did some research here in the forums and saw that you had suggested that to someone else, but it doesn't appear to be solve my issue. Any other thoughts?

Skybird · Answer

Choppy DVD playback can sometimes be tough to track down. You may have some
programs running in the background that can cause choppy DVD playback after
awhile. Disable as many background programs as you can to see if that makes
a difference.

tman1000 · Answer

When I check in device manager, secondary IDE Channel properties, DMA is enabled under Transfer mode, but under 'Current Transfer Mode' there is a grayed out option that says 'Not applicable.' Under the Primary IDE Channel properties, the current transfer mode line has DMA Ultra mode 5 and Mode 2 for the other device.   I'm assuming these are correct...is my only other option closing programs in the background to diminish processing tasks? I've even taken my display settings way down to 16 bit color and 800 X 600 resolution, but had mixed results.

zdawg29922 · Answer

I have a similar problem. I have the same setup with only slightly more memory, and whenever I put a DVD in, the drive just spins indefinately, ultimately frezzing my computer until I eject the disc. I have tried multiple software programs as well as updated all drivers and firmware, however nothing works! I have gotten a DVD to work occasionally, until it stops after about 10 min, and the program crashes. Others are having similar problems however no one has a solution! It sounds like there might be a common problem with the DVD/CDRW combo drive. . .

Storage, Drives & Media

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