New Build - DVD Playback is juttery

Owen

Just finished a new Build, 2.13 Ghz Core Duo, 4 Gigs Ram, 1.5 Terrabytes HD, Dell 30 inch monitor, 7800GTx 512MB Gfx Card, G15 Keyboard, Habu Mouse, yadda yadda yadda, loads of other stuff too, and everything works fine, but I have an issue with DVD Playback, whether it's with VLC, or any other DVD playback software, it's horrendously slow. I've a Samsung 16 Speed DVD Burner with Lightscribe, so it's fine speed wise. Any ideas lads?

Ruu_Old

Does lowering the screen resolution and colour depth make any difference? Is DMA enabled for the DVD drive?

m_stan

Is the DVD drive on as master or slave, and what is the jumper setting set to ? If slave, what's it slave to ? The HDD ? If so, put it on its own channel, on master and try again.

Owen

Ruu, I've tried your suggestion for Res, but it seems to occur no matter how small I resize the Window. DMA is enabled on both IDE Channels, and to m_stan, it's the only IDE device in the machine, so master, or slave, the bandwidth is not an issue.

Puzzling ...

Anti

Do you have a spare dvd drive lying around. or one you can borrow from a friend or family member, so we can rule out its not just a shagged drive.

Khannie

Check that DMA is enabled in the bios as well as the OS (it should be...but as you said...this is a weird one). Nice machine btw.

8T8

Use Nero InfoTool to confirm that it is running in DMA mode just go to the configuration tab and it will say it is or isn't just in case...

Windows doesn't say its multi-word DMA mode does it ?

If it is in DMA mode uninstall the IDE controller from the device manager and let Windows re-install the driver upon reboot hopefully that will nail it.

If it doesn't update the firmware of the Samsung DVDRW via Samsung's own live update program it will grab the correct firmware for the SH-S182M which is what I assume you have.

Owen

Thanks 8T8, I've upgraded the firmware, it didn't fix the issue, but it's always good to have the latest firmware regardless. I'll take a look at the DMA settings.

Owen

One of the IDE controllers was set to PIO mode, the rest were DMA if available. I've them all set to DMA now, but the playback is still terrible. If it hepls to narrow the issue, when the dvd playback is breaking up, the mouse is also erratic.

Khannie

Haev you the latest graphics drivers? What's CPU usage like when you're playing back the DVD?

Owen

CPU spikes to about 90%, then levels off down to about 20%, I've the latest GFX card drivers from Nvidia.

Just checking in the device properties of my Secondary IDE Channel, Device 0 is set to "DMA if available", but the current transfer mode is 'PIO Mode'. Bugger. Ideas lads?

8T8

Is the drive on the channel that is in PIO mode as that would explain the problem. Normally removing the IDE controller and Windows reinstalling the driver corrects in most scenarios but you've already tried that.

Is there anything else on the IDE channel ?

If so try changing the IDE cable & change jumper, also try all three settings of master/slave/cable select it's unusual but can be the cause of some DVDRW drives issues if another device is present.

What kind of chipset do you have ?

Khannie

It's definitely the PIO that's causing the problem then. Did you check the bios? My bios has a setting to disable DMA transfer on the IDE channels. Failing that, try to get the latest chipset drivers from the chipset (i.e. not motherboard) manufacterers website.

Owen

Well boys, the PIO was definitely the cause, and there was no bios selectable option. But a quick look on the MSI website delivered a RAID driver for the IDE channels that enabled DMA. So now I have smooth playback on my 30inch Dell monitor :-)

Thanks to everyone who helped me in the right direction, wouldn't have been able to do it without you.:D

theCzar

I'm having similar problems, e.g. inexplicably poor DVD playback, though its on my laptop in my case. The problem's only start towards the end of the movies though. Something to do with the area of the disk that's trying to be read perhaps?

I also have a samsung drive, but different model, specifically, a TSST TSL462C DVD/CD-RW. I've been through the rest of this thread looking for clues.

There's no mention of DMA in my bios settings to enable or disable

No mention of PIO in my IDE primary/secondary, but in both cases, device 1's current status is set to "Not Applicable". This I put down to computers laptop nature, but I could be wrong. Device 0's are Ultra DMA for what its worth.

Playback is perfect when I use an external DVD drive.

If anybody has any further hints?

8T8

theCzar run Neroinfo Tool install the demo if you have to and look on the configuration tab it will tell you what devices are running in DMA mode is yours ?

{ned78 that is weird that a RAID driver would be solution were you using the native IDE controllers or a third party one perhaps..}

TerrorFirmer

I have this exact same problem with the exact same drive I got from Komplett. Except in my case, everything is set to dma if available and current mode dma....latest firmware etc. By the way, did you use the live update? Did you notice the horrendous english? Pretty shocking for a big company like Samsung, some of the translations read like a subtitled pirate dvd or something!

theCzar

8T8 wrote:

theCzar run Neroinfo Tool install the demo if you have to and look on the configuration tab it will tell you what devices are running in DMA mode is yours ?

{ned78 that is weird that a RAID driver would be solution were you using the native IDE controllers or a third party one perhaps..}

info tool says:

Primary IDE Channel
- Master Hitachi HTs541080.......
- DMA on

Secondary IDE Channel
- Master TSSTcorp CDRW/DVD TSL462C
- DMA on
- Autorun on

8T8

Then DMA mode is enabled.

The fact that the problem happens on the outer edges of the disc which is where the end of the movie would be suggests perhaps a reading problem more than a bus speed issue.

As to what could be the cause well either the discs or driver perhaps.

I have also discovered Dell owners with the same problem as you so it is not an isolated issue it appears.

If you have a Dell or some other manufacturers notebook I recommend seeking out a firmware update for the drive, flashing firmware that are not intended for a specific notebook is a risky affair due to the way the master/slave setting is embedded in the firmware.

Dell have an E05 firmware here (use at your own risk) Nero Info Tool's main page can tell you what current version you have.

Also try removing the IDE controller from the notebooks device manager and let Windows re-install the driver for it.

Try using Nero Drive Speed in silent mode so it limits the speed of DVD playback which is probably locked at a certain speed anyway but it doesn't hurt to try. You can set drive speed to load on start-up as well though sometimes it can play havoc with the auto insert notification of Windows.

Also run Nero CD-DVD Speed & from under "Run Test" run the transfer rate test to see with a visual graph how it reads the disc if it dips at any point that is usually a read error.

theCzar

I started with firmware DE06, upgraded to DE07, then reverted back to DE04. All these were designed for my laptop, the DE05 isn't so I'm a bit sketchy.

I might pluck up the courage and have a punt though. To get the DE04 I had convert my USB stick to act like a boot disk, that does the job, so I think if I kill my drive, I could revert like that.

I'm still fairly pessimistic. I have seen that dell forum page before, along with some others, all with similar problems with the same drive. :mad:

//Edit

Ok, changed to DE05 AO3, same problem as before. That's 4 versions of firmware tried!