Sound stutters when reading movies from DVD-disc. Please help!

Hi.
I have a fairly new Laptop (hp nc8430), and as of recently it has started acting up when playing DVD-movies directly from disc. I have ben doing this since i got the machine, without any trouble at all, but then all of a sudden, the reader can´t seem to get the audio right when playing.
The sound stutters as if it doesn´t manage to stream correctly, the picture is ok, tough. I use Windows Mediaplyer classic, but it´s the same when using wmp 11 and vlc-player. Intervideo WinDVD manages to run the audio correctly, but then the picture is not good enough.
When i tried wmp 10, before upgrading, it said there was some problem with digital rights or something, but that disappeared when I upgraded to 11.
All the DVD´s I´ve been trying are original copies of films and tv-series.
Playing ripped files directly from harddrive works fine. Listening to Audio CDs also works fine.
Please help, I don´t know what to check for more on the comp!

Regards
/Tobias

hi, i have now reinstalled bothe players, and the problem is the same. looking att the cpu usage in the task manager it varies between 19-50 % while running a dvd. seems quite much, doesn´t it?
anyway, any other suggestions.please?
cheers
/Tobias

Ok, it seemed better to start explaining again. seems audio-cds also stutters.
All of a sudden, in the middle of watching a film from the dvd-player, the sound started to "stutter" some time ago. It worked perfectly before, using Windows media player classic. I tried VLC, and updated WMP to 11, but the problem is still here. I also uninstalled them all, and installed them again,, same problem. I tried Intervideo WinDVD, and it works fine, which I guess tells med it´s a codec thing? However all the players work fine if reading directly from the harddrive. The same thing is true for audio-cd´s. Using ITunes and listening from the cd-player, the sound stutters and cracks. Listening from the harddrive works fine. It also works fine to rip audio or video as images, and mount them in Daemon.
So, any ideas on how to fix this so that WMP and Classic works again (and ITunes of course).
Help MUCH appreciated!!

Happy New Year!
/T

Hey, it is still MS windows. uninstall media player 10 or 11, or Restore to the last time that audio works properly.

You might check to see if your player has reverted to PIO mode instead of DMA. That can slow it down considerably and cause playback problems.

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.

From there, if no luck, get back to us.

Hi,
The last post makes sense. I checked the IDE ATA/ATAPI, and it was set to PIO-mode, and I can´t change it. Is it safe to delete the primary IDE channel? It seems the hardrive is set to the same location (0) as the drive. Will not deleting this cause the OS to not be able to access the HD either?

You uninstall, it, not delete it. Yes, it is safe, even on the boot channel. But use the 'uninstall' you will see when you access the controller channel. This just resets the controller and the computer reinstalls it when you reboot.

That's the easiest method and I've done it quite a few times with no problems. If that doesn't reset it, then you may have to make some registry adjustments, and that has a higher risk factor.

PIO mode happens when the drive has six consecutive read failures. The OS, in order to continue reading, sets the speed lower and that's the PIO mode. It uses a lot of CPU power and is really slow. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you it's in PIO mode and it won't reset automatically. This is a Windows 'feature' I wish they would eliminate.