Audio CD plays choppy, can't force through audio cable.

[Guest]

I trying to do tech support for computer I built for a friend.
I installed a music CD and the sound is like the processor is involved but too slow. IOW, it's choppy. I connected an audio cable from the CD to the motherboard but it's still choppy. I tried to disable "DIGITAL CD Playback" in properties for the CD-ROM device but that does nothing as it still plays choppy on or off, cable connected or not.
I moved the CD drive to another PC with Windows 98 and it works flawlessly. If I disable that setting it stops playing when there's no cable connected as I would expect it to.
Why can't XP's same settings work?

Can anyone suggest an answer, methodology or website for the answer?

 

[Guest]

Often I re-read something I've written and find it's unclear. Maybe this is the case as well. Ok, from the top...
I tried playing a music cd in my friend's cd drive and it had a slight stutter, kind of like a frequent stop and restart in another part of the cd. I know the cd is ok as it and the others all play well. In that drive, and in that pc they all play with the same stutter.
I played with the 4 permutations that exist with two options. Those options are with/without an audio cable connected between the cd-drive and the motherboard's "cd connector" and with/without "Enable Digital CD" checked in the CD drive's properties page in Device Manager. Unfortunately, all four combinations produce the exact same results... stutter, stutter, stutter, stutter.

I took the drive out of that machine and stuck it into another that has windows 98. Initially, without the cable connected there was no sound. With the cable connected it sounded great.

Being curious, I checked my personal computer and there's no cable installed. I checked in the drive's property page and well, with or without "Enable Digital CD" checked it played just fine. What the heck is that setting for if not to enable/disable bypassing the audio cable? Help, please, I'm lost on this one.