Jumpy Audio CD playback

[owen080808]

Ok guys, this might seem long winded, but im gonna try and give as much info as i can.

i have recently found that when trying to play back my audio cd's using the cdrw/dvd combo drive on my laptop the music skips and jumps about once a second. i can still write audio and data cd's, and the last time i checked i had no problems reading dvd's either. i have used a lens cleaning cd with no improvement given.

from reading other threads on this and other online sources i understand that no drivers are needed on top of windows xp for this type of drive. i have also used the troubleshooting guides in wondows for sound and the cd drive but to no avail.

i think it may be a buffer issue with the drive but have not been able to find out how to change buffer setting in windows.

my laptop is a packard bell igo 4451, running windows xp service pack 2, using media player 10 and nero burning software. my cd drive is a Mat****a UJDA730 DVD/CDRW

any information that anyone has from this drive or similar experiences i would be greatly appreciative of any ideas

thanks

[owen080808]

aw man, lots of views but no answers. come on, someone must have some information, i'm really stuck here guys!

lets simplify the question

- does anyone know if this drive is ATAPI?
- is it true that ATAPI drives do not require drivers to run in windows XP?
- does anyone know if all laptop drives are the same size, i.e. could i simply buy a second hand replacement from an old laptop?

hopefully i can get some answers.

cheers

[confus-ed]

aw man, lots of views but no answers. come on, someone must have some information, i'm really stuck here guys!

I'll trade you some suggestions for you going & adding to my thread about finding unanswered technical stuff 'easily' (as this one had passed me by until I started doing a physical trawl of every 'newish' post in the technical bits of the forums) its here

..have discovered that the jumpyness still occurs when watching a DVD or video files from a cd. also when audio is ripped from cd to mp3 or wma the jumping is transfered to the created files. i assume this means that it is deffintely a problem associated with the drive itself...

If you assume, as my old teacher used to say you can make an 'a-s-s' out of 'u' & 'me' ..

SP2 is probably most likely your problem - did it work ok before ?

What you say about cd\dvd's not needing drivers, isn't really 'right' - it is & it isn't - cd's just use atapi.sys to read - so no driver needed for that, writing functions always need a driver, that comes from your writing software (well a filter class for atapi.sys, but that's far too 'techobabbly' for now !) - but playback etc is dependent on your whole system running right - I'd start at 'packard Hell's' site & apply all the latest drivers for everything all over again - sp2 is most annoying in that it will replace newer OEM drivers you might have downloaded with 'worse' standard windows ones.

[owen080808]

ok

it did work ok before, i had an older version of windows and then downloaded sp2, but my cd drive still worked as usual,

i recently formatted and re-installed windows with a version of windows which aleady included sp2. thats when the problem seemed to have arrisen.

i did use all the drivers available from packard hell after the re-install to get everything back to the way it used to be. i have since been back to their website and after your recomendation and done all the drivers again, i also use a bios update from packard bell. sadly none of this seems to have fixed the problem.

thanks for the suggestions tho, any other ideas would be greatly recieved.

thanks again

owen

[confus-ed]

Mmmm .. more questions then before any more suggestions..

When you went from 'whatever' o/s you had originally (a note of that might help me/us figure it out) did you upgrade or did you do a clean install ?

If you open up device manager & click view & change that to 'resources by connection' what type of pc do you apparently have ? - it'll say something like 'ACPI PC' or 'standard pc' probably as the first or second line of the items in that view of device manager.

& if you know how - can you tell me whether ACPI is on or off in bios ?


There's a whole load of techno-babble behind what I'm thinking about (that I shan't bother anyone with unless they really want to know , but it comes down to a thing called a HAL (hardware abstraction layer) & this can have a big impact on how well windows works - you set this when you install windows (probably without realising) depending on what it finds as bios values.

[owen080808]

Ok

i checked and in device manager it tells me i have a "miscrosoft ACPI compliant system" which to me seems to be what you were expecting?

not sure about the bios or not, i will try and figure out how to go look tho and let you know if i can work it out.
With regards to the technobable, i am always keen to know how something works, i think it usually gives a user more of an affinity with a tool if thet know in depth what it actually does. im not saying ill deffinately fully understand all of it but it is nice to know, so long as you dont mind explaining it to us simpletons!

Before my reinstall i was using windows xp pro, with sp2 downloaded as an update. i then did a full format and clean re-install (not just an install over the top) with a newer version of xp which came with the sp2 features included on the disk.

Regarding the hibernbation issue, it does sound like i have exactly the same, frequent skipping of music from the cd drive as you do. however it is not affected by which way i shut the computer down, and nothing changes after a re-boot. are you still being affected by the problem or did you find a solution?

Thanks for your time guys

Owen

[owen080808]

An update

have discovered that the jumpyness still occurs when watching a DVD or video files from a cd. also when audio is ripped from cd to mp3 or wma the jumping is transfered to the created files. i assume this means that it is deffintely a problem associated with the drive itself.

i woudl still really like to know if anyone knows of firmware updates for this drive, or could even tell me if they do/dont exist.

i still suspect that it is in some way related to the buffer for the drive, so if anyone has any informtion to share about chaning buffer settings i would be most greatfull

thanks again

owen

[invisionable]

This may be completely irrelevant to your situation, but since upgrading to WinXP sp2 I've found that my ASUS DVD-ROM used for audio and DVD playback (E616-P2 or some such serial no., latest firmware etc.) will sometimes skip and jump on audio playback, about once a second. However, this only happens if I've brought the machine out of hibernation or standby, and even then it only occurs infrequently. A reboot fixes all.

Device has been uninstalled and reinstalled in device manager etc. but I suspect there's something not right about the way hibernation and standby are causing the drive to sleep and re-awake.

Does your laptop drive work OK on a clean boot, or does your problem only occur after standby or suspend?

General specs: Tyan Trinity i845E, Intel P4 2.4 Ghz 533 Mhz FSP, 512 Mb PC2100 RAM, 2x Seagate 160 Gb HDD, Promise Ultra100TX2 controller (HDDs are connected to this; optical drives are on mainboard IDE controllers), Asus DVD-ROM E616-P2, Pioneer DVR-108XL...