Problems Playing DVD's

[donjayok]

I have just built a computer with a dvd writer in it.

When playing dvd's, using Win DVD 4, every so often the movie stutters and makes a sound like a machine gun. The picture is fine but freezes when it stutters.

Any ideas as to what it could be? A friend suggested trying another application to play the DVD........

Thanks for any replies.

[Oliver]

There are tons of possible causes for your problem. You should search the forums here, and read up on software DVD players. A good site to start with is http://www.digital-digest.com.
I personally have had problems getting WinDVD to work on my home-built PC, and instead use PowerDVD XP which works flawlessly.

[donjayok]

Ok thanks for that Oliver. I will try what you mentioned.

I also tried turning off the onboard sound in the BIOS, but it made no difference.

The Hard disk that is installed, although is an 80Gb, only has a 2Mb cache. Could that be the problem?

[donjayok]

I downloaded a trial version of Power DVD5 and used that to play the DVD's. Although it doesn't stutter and makes a sound like a machine gun as much, it still does it.

Any more ideas?

[Prospero424]

Make sure your DVD drive is using DMA (Direct Memory Access) mode and not PIO mode.

If you're using XP, you should be able to check this by going into your device manager, expand the IDE/ATAPI (disk) controller menu, opening the properties of the channel your drive is on, and clicking on the advanced properties tab.

98/ME is very similar, you just look at the properties of the drive itself rather than the controller.


If it is using DMA mode, then try updating your motherboard's drivers.

[donjayok]

Thanks for your reply prospero.

The DMA was already enabled and I have the latest Via drivers installed.

The DVD had the latest firmware update.

I installed the DVD writer in my computer and used the same software power DVD 5 and it worked fine, so I dont think it the drive.

The mobo, cpu and memory are both the same on the 2 computers. The vid cards are 128mb, although one is a Nvidia and one is a ATI (both have the latest drivers). The only other difference is the Hard disk. The HD on my PC is a 120Gb (8md cache) and the size of the HD on the PC that is having problems is 80Gb with 2mb cache. Could this be the problem?

The computer with the problem has a ATI 9200SE 128Mb card.

[Prospero424]

Nah, 2mb caches, while not optimal, are pretty standard across all manufacturers. Also, DVD playback has little or nothing to do with HDD performance.

Is this the only optical drive in your system? If no, maker sure that it is either alone on it's IDE channel or set as the master of the channel.


If these are DVDs that you have burned, and this is VERY important, try burning another at a lower speed, such as 2X if the others were burned to 4X. It seems like the DVD media out there just isn't keeping up with the drive speeds. It could be that the drive is having trouble reading discs burned at high speed, which is quite common.

If these are Store-bought or rented DVDs, then you might think about getting a lens-cleaning kit to clean the laser lens in your drive, especially if you operate in a dirty or smokey environment.

Also, since you say that the mobos are the same, make sure that the BIOS versions are the same on both. Also make sure that the lates motherboard chipset drivers are installed if you haven;t done this already.

Are the DVD drives on both PCs identical? If not, it could be the odd incompatibility with the drrive itself. It happens. You could try updating the firmware on the drive, but this CAN be risky if you're not careful.


That about exhausts my ideas. Good luck!