Clicking noise while listening to music on CD-ROM

[WishMaker]

Until a week ago, I could put in a music cd (burned or retail) into my LG cd/dvd drive and listen to
the music without incident. Just yesterday, I put a retail bought cd in the drive and heard clicking
noises in the background. I tried different cd's and same result. (Music played from files on my computer
play fine.) When playing the cd in the drive today, I noticed the clicking was a bit louder (perhaps, because
I'm more aware of it now) and the music is skipping a bit too. Also, I noticed the clicking noise is in sync
with the hard drive light? (not the light on the cd/dvd rom drive).

Before I go out and buy another cd/dvd drive, could anyone give me a clue as to what I might check
for? The hardware setup is the same as it's been for about 3 years. Within the last week, I let Microsoft
update Windows Media Player, (it didn't download properly at first) also Microsoft Internet Explorer, and
Mozilla Firefox. (one of the updated versions). The clicking is present whether I use Windows Media Player
or Soundblaster's Creative Player.

My computer has been noticeably slowing down over the past month. I've defragged both drives and still
have over 40% free space available on the 160GB Hard Drive and 70% free space on the 80GB one (C drive
with Windows and such on it.) This problem might have been present for a while, as I don't normally use
the computer's cd/dvd drive to play music continuously. Just to see which tracks I want to rip. So, the
problem could have started before last week, but just gotten bad enough for me to notice now.

Sorry for the long post. I just don't know what information is needed for a good diagnostic guess. The last
Window's XP fresh install was in March, I think.

[zoobie]

I had to replace my sound card when this happened...something was kaput...perhaps take out your sound card and insert into another box? I think I took mine to Comp USA and they tested it

[SLK001]

Computer slowing down? Usually a sign of having picked up a "cold" somewhere (virus, malware, spyware, trojan, adware, etc.). Are any programs consuming large amount of processor time? This will often manifest itself with clicks in any continuous operation like playing CDs due to lack of enough cycles to build up a large enough buffer.

Get "Process Explorer" from MS web site and install it to replace Task Manager. Have it show in the Tool Tray. That way, you can see when your computer usage is getting excessive and can check to see who is using it.

Are you using Digital CD Playback, or a cable from your drive? Are you using the CD Player, or WMP to play your CDs?

[WishMaker]

Sorry I haven't gotten back here before now. I unplug the internet cable when I'm doing video and just now came up for air.

zoobie, I'm quite the computer idiot. I'm hoping I can disable the soundblaser card and use the MB's onboard sound to check and see if it's the soundblaser card?

---------------------------------------------

SLK001, I quite possibly could have picked up a "cold". The CA firewall portion of my virus protection went down for about a week before I figured out how to get it reinstalled. A scan for spyware and viruses have been run, but ya never know.

On the digital or cable question, I don't know. (I have the headphone/microphone headset plugged directly into the back of the soundblaster card. The headphone is not plugged into the cd/dvd drive. I use either WMP or Creative Player to listen to the music.

Since I don't know much about computer's/software, I'd rather not install the Process Explorer unless all else fails. I never know what to do with the information. I'm always afraid I'll disable something I'm not supposed to.

Oh! Before the last fresh install of WinXP, back in March, my computer's clock was off by 5 minutes. I reset it and it seemed fine, but just yesterday, I noticed it's off by 5 minutes again. When I first reset it, back in March, I checked on the time for about a month to see if it was slowly loosing time, but after it stayed the same I stopped checking. It could have just happened or has been loosing time again. Does this have anything to do with anything?

Thanks, so much guys/gals and I'll report back asap.

[Sartori]

For the hardware side -

1.check the cables are fully inserted (and change them if possible to prove them) ,
2.check that the slave/master is set correctly on it and
3.check that the hard drive is on DMA mode , if XP encounters "issues" reading , it can turn it off and running in PIO mode , making it slower .
4.check BIOS for any untoward settings

The clock resetting , BIOS battery dying ? you`d have to google for that would do


http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

[WishMaker]

Back to report... The cables seemed solid, but old, so I just ordered new ones.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the cd/dvd drive from the device manager?, but it still stayed stuck in PIO mode (with the same syptoms), so I pulled the cd/dvd drive out and exchanged it with one from another machine. No go. BUT... when I put the original drive back in and looked at the DMA status, it was back up to DMA 2. I read somewhere, that after three failures, that Windows will keep dropping it down. The clicking/stuttering symptoms may well return, because when I looked at the Event Log? (Didn't even know there was such a thing) it had errors for the drive everytime I booted up since way back.

Anyway, it will take 3 - 7 days for the new cables and new cd/dvd writer/burner (plus extras) to arrive. I will report back if in that time, Windows really does drop the DMA back down to PIO mode again.

I hope I don't have to come back to this thread again, but thank you, everyone. PS: Thought I could order a bios battery? at the same place, but will have to do it somewhere else. Oh! And my music plays from the cd/dvd drive without clicking or stuttering!!!

Edit: I just want to make clear, that the two hard drives on the Primary Ide channel were always in Ultra 6 (I think, 6) DMA mode. It was the cd/dvd drive on the Secondary Ide channel, that went and got stuck down in PIO mode. The DVD burner on the second Ide channel was always in DMA mode too. Also, even though the DMA came back up on the cd/reader-writer/dvd-reader (sorry, I forget the correct names for these drives), I went ahead and bought an all in one cd/dvd reader-writer drive to eliminate the DVD burner, which would only Read OR Write in PIO mode. Slow too, as it is a Pioneer-104 (Burns at only 1x) I figured it wouldn't hurt to give my old machine some more air flow by eliminating one drive and if problems persist, I will have one less drive to worry about. If anyone thinks this new information would shed some more light on what the problem could be, please post. Thanks!

[Sartori]

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the cd/dvd drive from the device manager?, but it still stayed stuck in PIO mode (with the same syptoms), so I pulled the cd/dvd drive out and exchanged it with one from another machine. No go. BUT... when I put the original drive back in and looked at the DMA status, it was back up to DMA 2. I read somewhere, that after three failures, that Windows will keep dropping it down. The clicking/stuttering symptoms may well return, because when I looked at the Event Log? (Didn't even know there was such a thing) it had errors for the drive everytime I booted up since way back

The link at the bottom of my last post was a link to the Micorsoft article about drives dropping to PIO and how to cure it , if you want my opinion on what caused it ? you had a cable not fully inserted in the cd drive or the cable is faulty going to the drive - both of these will give an element of working / display faults . Good luck on it .