A
Andrew Murray
I have a Windows XP Pro SP2 system 1.4ghtz, 512meg RAM and it has an LG
DVD/CD-RW drive combo installed. In recent days I have been getting
terrible play back from DVD movies (rentals mainly).
I realise the following might be a factor, but have all but ruled it out:
rental dvds are obviously used alot, and can get scratched & damaged, I've
had my share of those, but this problem is quite different. The movie plays
but the video & sound is "choppy", the sound is disorted/static. It also is
happening with my own movie collection, not just the rentals.
Normal sound plays fine (I've run the Dxdiag utility and it found nothing
wrong with the video or sound hardware).
Device manager says Dvd player is "working properly"
To solve the problem I looked up the dvd troubleshooter in windows xp and
followed its advice, including checking the "DMA where available" option was
correctly set - it is.
Other things I have tried are
Swapping over the IDE ribbon cable, various connections on the cable (i.e.
the master/slave connector) I have also changed over the IDE ribbon cable,
but play back is the same. Cables are firmly plugged in (there's no way to
reverse-install them)
I'm running DirectX 9 (DirectX 8.1 is the minimum for PowerDVD 5.0) but
upgrading to latest version.
I have an graphics card Geforce II MX 440 (PCI) but it hasn't given me any
trouble and is within the specs of the sytem requirements for PowerDVD 5.0.
I'm downloading graphics drivers & DirectX (latest version) in case this is
the cause of the problem.
Doing a system restore didn't help. I even tried a System File Check (SFC)
but I don't know if that was related, as that only checks that Windows
system files are OK, original versions and not corrupted. I have yet to try
a repair install of Windows, and want to avoid a full re-installation.
Upgrading to Power dvd 6.0 didn't help (in fact made problem worse). Have
not found any patches applicable to PowerDVD 5.0 that helped the situation.
(www.cyberlink.com). This is an OEM version which came with the dvd/cd-rw
drive.
I also will get a new ribbon IDE cable to test that, but I can't see
anything damaged like bent pins on the IDE connector etc.I will report back.
As I said, this was working fine to a few days ago.
It is a cdrw/dvd combo and the cd-rw works fine (I realise there are
separate lasers for the dvd/cd .
Anyone know the life of a dvd rom drive, that probably gets used 20 hours a
week? Drive is probably < 24 months old.
I'm an average user, with a good general knowledge to troubleshoot problems,
but this has stumped me.
Short of getting a new drive (which I may do anyway), any other suggestions?
Thanks for any assistance.
DVD/CD-RW drive combo installed. In recent days I have been getting
terrible play back from DVD movies (rentals mainly).
I realise the following might be a factor, but have all but ruled it out:
rental dvds are obviously used alot, and can get scratched & damaged, I've
had my share of those, but this problem is quite different. The movie plays
but the video & sound is "choppy", the sound is disorted/static. It also is
happening with my own movie collection, not just the rentals.
Normal sound plays fine (I've run the Dxdiag utility and it found nothing
wrong with the video or sound hardware).
Device manager says Dvd player is "working properly"
To solve the problem I looked up the dvd troubleshooter in windows xp and
followed its advice, including checking the "DMA where available" option was
correctly set - it is.
Other things I have tried are
Swapping over the IDE ribbon cable, various connections on the cable (i.e.
the master/slave connector) I have also changed over the IDE ribbon cable,
but play back is the same. Cables are firmly plugged in (there's no way to
reverse-install them)
I'm running DirectX 9 (DirectX 8.1 is the minimum for PowerDVD 5.0) but
upgrading to latest version.
I have an graphics card Geforce II MX 440 (PCI) but it hasn't given me any
trouble and is within the specs of the sytem requirements for PowerDVD 5.0.
I'm downloading graphics drivers & DirectX (latest version) in case this is
the cause of the problem.
Doing a system restore didn't help. I even tried a System File Check (SFC)
but I don't know if that was related, as that only checks that Windows
system files are OK, original versions and not corrupted. I have yet to try
a repair install of Windows, and want to avoid a full re-installation.
Upgrading to Power dvd 6.0 didn't help (in fact made problem worse). Have
not found any patches applicable to PowerDVD 5.0 that helped the situation.
(www.cyberlink.com). This is an OEM version which came with the dvd/cd-rw
drive.
I also will get a new ribbon IDE cable to test that, but I can't see
anything damaged like bent pins on the IDE connector etc.I will report back.
As I said, this was working fine to a few days ago.
It is a cdrw/dvd combo and the cd-rw works fine (I realise there are
separate lasers for the dvd/cd .
Anyone know the life of a dvd rom drive, that probably gets used 20 hours a
week? Drive is probably < 24 months old.
I'm an average user, with a good general knowledge to troubleshoot problems,
but this has stumped me.
Short of getting a new drive (which I may do anyway), any other suggestions?
Thanks for any assistance.
