<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/10/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Mark Hesseltine</b> <<a href="mailto:markhesseltine@gmail.com">markhesseltine@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Install VideoLan on it and try playing an audio CD or DVD. A default<br>build of VLC should have codecs for both, which would rule out codec<br>issues. If it's still skipping and stuttering, it's probably related<br>
to the drive.</blockquote><div><br><br>Good idea about VLC. The guy said to install something with codecs, and VLC would probably do the trick.<br><br>But I did find something else interesting. I did a Google search for DVD PIO, and I found this:
<br><a href="http://winhlp.com/?q=node/10" target="_blank" onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)">http://winhlp.com/?q=node/10</a><br><span>--------</span><br><span><span>For repeated DMA errors.</span> Windows XP will turn off
DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer
operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn
off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.</span>
<span></span>
<p><span>In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device.
The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and
reinstall the device.</span></p>
<span></span>
<p><span>Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after
receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system
will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and
so on).<br>--------</span></p><span>If
a drive is failing, that would give CRC errors, and would cause XP to
revert to PIO mode. So I'm still thinking it is a failing drive. I
think I'm going to pursue the Knoppix idea (thanks Josh), and see what
happens. But, if the Knoppix test succeeds, I'll definitely try VLC to
repair the codecs. There is also a registry edit to re-enable DMA in
the link above. I might try that to see if that fixes it at least
temporarily.
<br><br><br></span></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">On 9/10/07, Tim Wilson <<a href="mailto:tim_linux@wilson-home.com">
tim_linux@wilson-home.com</a>> wrote:<br>> I know a question about Windows make most people on the list shudder, but I<br>> think someone at Best Buy is blowing smoke (or has inhaled too deeply).<br>><br>> My wife's laptop started experiencing issues a little over a week ago, with
<br>> one of the auto-launch programs saying that a device was not using DMA mode.<br>> So I went to the disk controller in Device Manager, and sure enough, it was<br>> set to use DMA mode if available, but it was using PIO mode. We also
<br>> noticed that the drive was making noises, and the laptop was quite sluggish<br>> when anything was using the DVD drive. Since it is under warranty, I took<br>> it in to Best Buy, and the "tech" at Geek Squad said it wasn't a failing
<br>> drive, it was corrupted codecs. He played an audio CD, and it skipped and<br>> hesitated. So his argument was that it had to be a codec, because even in<br>> PIO mode, the CD should be fine.<br>><br>> I'll admit, that test was pretty convincing, but it still doesn't explain
<br>> the sluggishness of the laptop while the DVD is in use. That to me sounds<br>> like a PIO mode issue.<br>><br>> Does this sound remotely plausible to anyone? Would putting a live CD<br>> distro in and testing with it prove helpful?
<br>><br>> --<br>> Tim<br>> _______________________________________________<br>> Cialug mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:Cialug@cialug.org">Cialug@cialug.org</a><br>> <a href="http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug">
http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug</a><br>><br>><br><br><br>--<br>Mark Hesseltine<br>mailto:<a href="mailto:markhesseltine@gmail.com">markhesseltine@gmail.com</a><br>_______________________________________________
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<br>-- <br>Tim