tsstcorp ts-l532m and lag when playing DVDs

Thirdfox

Hello everyone,

I've a HP dv1365ea laptop which has a (Toshiba?) tsstcorp ts-l532m lightscribe dvd+-rw/cd-rw drive in it.

When I play DVDs on it there is an annoying lag that happens every 15 minutes or so... really ruins the watching experience.

Does anyone know how to solve this? (I've tried looking for firmware upgrades with no luck).

Regards,

Thirdfox

8T8

Firmware updates can be risky on a notebook anyway if it has not come directly from the notebook manufacturer. As the firmware must be set to either master/slave & if you flash the drive with the wrong settings it will disable the drive.

There is a crossflash available to another brand Toshiba drive (same internal hardware) if you wanted to risk it that has better firmware support.

Google shows not surprisingly that the TS-L532M is a pretty unreliable drive it could be the drive is on it's way out hence the lag problem you describe if that were the case then there is not much you can do bar replace it.

If it's a software issue try un-installing the drive and the IDE controller from the device manager and let windows re-install the driver for both.

Also what decoder are you using to playback the DVD's ?

Thirdfox

The problem is present when I use intervideo (8?) and realplayer to watch DVDs.

I've blasted off an e-mail to HP support to see what they suggest...

The laptop is a year old so the drive shouldn't be about to die on me...(especially since I'm studying in a foreign country and replacing a drive will be a real pain)...

8T8

I've seen drives die quicker than in the space of a year trust me it's not that uncommon. The parts used in optical drives these days are of fairly low quality.

If the drive is removable take it out and see if it uses the standard connector for notebook optical drives.

If it does then replacing it will be a lot easier if you cannot obtain a replacement from HP, NEC sell notebook drives which you can get for €60-70 and all you have to do is plug it in & you should be good to go. Any decent online computer store in the country you are in should stock them

The only thing is that the bezel may not be flush with the notebooks casing though you can remove the bezel from the NEC and Toshiba drives & swap them around.

There is a small chance it could be a heat problem perhaps the notebook isn't cooling the drive as well as it should be, you could use something like Nero Drive Speed to limit the read speed to 1x and see if that makes any difference.

Also try the VLC player and see if lag occurs when playing through it as well.

Thirdfox

Thanks for your help.

The HP guy said that it's probably a drive problem too (my warranty expired 2 months ago )

Is it really just plug and play for drives?

I'm in China right now so buying electronic is quite cheap (but quality could potentially be worse )

8T8

Yeah it's fairly easy to swap them just check the under side of the notebook for a latch or screw that keeps the DVD drive in place, once removed you should be able to take out the Toshiba drive and check the connector.

If it's the same as the one I provided in the link then you can swap it with most off the shelf notebook drives.