Replacing computer CD drive with DVD drive - any problems?

[EricB]

I inherited an older Gateway Essential with 400mhz Celeron, 64mb RAM, integrated video and sound, Windows 98SE. My daughter would like to be able to play DVDs on the computer. Is it as simple as replacing the CD drive with a DVD or can I expect other problems?

Thanks for any help.

[devinemi83]

I doubt if you wil have any problems with the install. But here is an issue, her computer may not be fast enough to do the video decode by itself. My 500MHz Celeron stutters bad when I play DVD video. MPEG2 is VERY taxing on your machine. Check to find out if the drive you want comes with a decoder card. if not, you may want to buy a cheap video card that offers DVD decoding.

[EricB]

Thanks for the info. As I looked around I saw that a decoder on the video card was recommended / required.

[Greg12]

I have a 866mhz laptop, it plays DVD's but it get's really hot playing them


I can't seem to convence the Nvidia board to decode, it wants to pass it off to the CPU.

[devinemi83]

800MHz is the lowest CPU speed I would say to do pure software decode.

[jtor]

If I remember correctly, the minimum requirement for a DVD ROM drive is 350MHz (plus a little guardband, of course).

I've installed a DVD Rom drive on my son's el-cheapo E-Machine Celeron 500MHz and still haven't seen it choke or whatever.

If you can return the DVD ROM drive if your PC doesn't like it, I suggest you go ahead and try it out. But it should work.

[ChrisX]

I did have the same problem installing a DVD-ROM in a low CPU computer, at 350 Mhz. The CPU speed was too low for acceptable performance playing a DVD movie. It was too slow especially for the speech. So, I transferred it to another computer having greater power to run the DVD movie. I got results of much better viewing since then.

For the DVD movie to run in the computer, the recommended minimum CPU speed is 800 Mhz and must have a really good video card as well. The video card should be at least 32MB. A way to go to enjoy.