Why Does My Computer Pause When I Insert A CD or DVD?

[Gary Brown]

Hi,

Whenever I insert a CD or DVD my computer pauses for a few
seconds. This has been the case for every combination of OS and
hardware. Why? Can it be avoided?

Already tried Google.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[pova]

cdrom need clean

 

[olfart]

Hi,

Whenever I insert a CD or DVD my computer pauses for a few seconds. This
has been the case for every combination of OS and hardware. Why? Can it
be avoided?

Already tried Google.

Thanks,
Gary

No
it takes time to load the CD/DVD

 

[Gary Brown]

No
it takes time to load the CD/DVD

Not what I was referring to. All operations stop, even those
not dependent on the CD/DVD.

Gary

 

[Jeff Barnett]

Not what I was referring to. All operations stop, even those
not dependent on the CD/DVD.

Gar

I'm not sure of my conjecture since I've never looked at the XP code: My
conjecture is that when the drive informs the computer of an insert
event, a dialogue between the OS and the drive occurs where various
pieces of information about the media are gathered. I further conjecture
that the OS does a "busy wait" for the drive to gather each piece of
information and pass it over. Since this involves "spinning up" the
media, the wait is noticeable to a human. My conjecture is that the
hardware interrupt mechanism is not used at this point (other than to
post the insert notification) and isn't invoked until later when the
media is read or written. If this conjecture is correct, this
inefficiency is historical and nobody has bother to rewrite the
low-speed portion of some very old code.

Anyone out there looked at the code to verify or reject the above?

 

[Unknown]

Why bother? Accept it as it is.

I'm not sure of my conjecture since I've never looked at the XP code: My
conjecture is that when the drive informs the computer of an insert event,
a dialogue between the OS and the drive occurs where various pieces of
information about the media are gathered. I further conjecture that the OS
does a "busy wait" for the drive to gather each piece of information and
pass it over. Since this involves "spinning up" the media, the wait is
noticeable to a human. My conjecture is that the hardware interrupt
mechanism is not used at this point (other than to post the insert
notification) and isn't invoked until later when the media is read or
written. If this conjecture is correct, this inefficiency is historical
and nobody has bother to rewrite the low-speed portion of some very old
code.

Anyone out there looked at the code to verify or reject the above?

 

[Gary Brown]

Why bother? Accept it as it is.

I am consolidating about 600 CDs to DVDs. Having everything on
my computer come to a complete stop every time a CD spins up
gets annoying.

I expected this was common problem. Apparently not.

Gary

 

[Unknown]

Not a problem. It is normal.

I am consolidating about 600 CDs to DVDs. Having everything on my
computer come to a complete stop every time a CD spins up gets annoying.

I expected this was common problem. Apparently not.

Gary

 

[Stefan Patric]

I am consolidating about 600 CDs to DVDs. Having everything on my
computer come to a complete stop every time a CD spins up gets annoying.

If I had to guess (and it is a guess), I'd say your machine might be
using virtual memory, and this "stalls" the user interface while it's
swapping out stuff in RAM to the hard drive.

What's the specs on your machine?

How full is your System drive?

Have you emptied the Trash lately?

What's in the Startup folder.

Check the Task Manager to see what's running a nd what the CPU usage is.
You may have so much stuff running (or not enough RAM) that it is bogging
down your machine.

I expected this was common problem. Apparently not.

No. Not common at all.


Stef

 

[Unknown]

Not common???? Try it.

If I had to guess (and it is a guess), I'd say your machine might be
using virtual memory, and this "stalls" the user interface while it's
swapping out stuff in RAM to the hard drive.

What's the specs on your machine?

How full is your System drive?

Have you emptied the Trash lately?

What's in the Startup folder.

Check the Task Manager to see what's running a nd what the CPU usage is.
You may have so much stuff running (or not enough RAM) that it is bogging
down your machine.


No. Not common at all.


Stef

 

[Stefan Patric]

Not common???? Try it.

None of my systems or OSes "pause," that is, temporarily refuse user
input when I insert a CD. Never have. And none of my friends' systems
or the ones I regularly service do either. Do yours? Must be something
amiss.


Stef

 

[Unknown]

As a test, browse on the internet while inserting a CD. Does browsing hang?
Is it only when consolidate your CDs to DVDs?

 

[Gary Brown]

I've managed to get through the first 150. It hasn't been quite
as bad as expected but, for some reason, either the stoppage or
my patience varies from day to day. The bottom line, though, is
there is nothing that can be done about it.

Thanks to those who responded,
Gary

Pardon for top posting but I didn't think anyone needed to read
the original question one more time.

 

[The Seabat]

If it's any consolation my machines act the same way. I've built and
worked a multitude of boxes and I can't remember any that didn't act
this way. Even from a brand new fresh install, when a disc is inserted
into the DVD/CD drive all on screen mouse clicks result in nothing
happening! I always thought it was the nature of the beast (optical
drive). I too, would like to know how a body gets around this delay?

 

[Nil]

If it's any consolation my machines act the same way. I've built
and worked a multitude of boxes and I can't remember any that
didn't act this way. Even from a brand new fresh install, when a
disc is inserted into the DVD/CD drive all on screen mouse clicks
result in nothing happening! I always thought it was the nature of
the beast (optical drive). I too, would like to know how a body
gets around this delay?

I think it's a Windows thing, not a hardware thing. I seem to recall
that in my minor tinkering with Linux, that OS keeps on ticking when I
insert a CD. But every version of Windows I've used pauses for several
seconds. It's annoying. I remember how cool I thought it was when I
discovered that Windows NT didn't hang while it read floppy disks, like
DOS/Win3/98 did. Wow, I could format floppies all day and keep on
working! I don't know why the same thing wouldn't apply to CDs/DVDs.