DVD skipping problem. Slow drive speed.

[rayden54]

When I try to play a DVD the audio and video shudders no matter what DVD or program I use. I tested my Drive with Nero CD-DVD Speed, and it listed the speed as 0.90x.

I'm pretty sure I have had this problem before, but I can't remember what I did to fix it.

Laptop: Dell Vostro 1000
DVD Drive: PBDS DVD+-RW DS-8W1P VBD1B
OS: Windows XP Home SP3

[Baldrick]

Is just one dvd that shudders? Or all? Homeburned or commercial? Burned dvds can be problematic.

[redwudz]

One other thing to check is if your drive is stuck in PIO mode instead of DMA. You would see high CPU usage and the drive would be generally slow. Try this:

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel the drive is on and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot. This will not damage any files on the computer.