DVD playback issue

[Avalon]

As the title states, I can't playback DVD movies on my DVD drive. It's a lite-on CDRW/DVD combo drive. The model is this one. Maybe someone can help me figure this out.

Here's the problem. I can run DVD movies, but after 5-15 minutes (it varies), the video will crawl to a halt, and then WMP (or PowerDVD) will crash. I basically have to restart the video and use scene selection half a dozen times to finish watching a movie.

Any thoughts? I'm fairly stumped at the moment. I'm starting to wonder if it's this Lite-on model in general, as two of my friends have the same exact setup as me, but with different DVD drives, and they watch movies flawlessly all the time. Are there any video codecs that I'm missing or that may need updating? I appreciate any help anyone can give.

 

[Avalon]

Here's what I know:

1) My drive has the latest firmware.

2) I've tried another Lite-on drive (same model I believe), and the issue was the same.

3) My system is marginally overclocked, but it's prime stable for 24 hours (memory and CPU)


I'm sorry about the second post, but I just got DSL and it's having issues with my router, and it won't post large posts. Nor can I visit certain sites. Bleh

 

[tomcas1]

I think you can rule out a codec as the problem. It either works or it doesn?t, it not going to crap out after a few minutes. I suppose it could be the drive. I had a Liteon 811S that was DOA from Newegg recently. It would recognize CDs but not DVDs. Can you borrow your friends DVD drive and see what happens. I'm thinking it is a heat issue. Try leaving the side off the case and see what happens.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: tomcas1
I think you can rule out a codec as the problem. It either works or it doesn?t, it not going to crap out after a few minutes. I suppose it could be the drive. I had a Liteon 811S that was DOA from Newegg recently. It would recognize CDs but not DVDs. Can you borrow your friends DVD drive and see what happens. I'm thinking it is a heat issue. Try leaving the side off the case and see what happens.

Well, I suppose I can try borrowing my brother's DVD drive and see if the problem persists. I forgot he had one. The side of my case is currently open as it is, since I don't have good ventilation inside it. I'll give it a shot. Thanks man :thumbsup:

 

[Avalon]

I tried my brother's BenQ drive, which plays DVDs in his computer just fine. No go in mine though. After five minutes, crash.

If it matters any, my drive is on its own IDE channel (secondary) set as the master drive. My two HDDs are on the other channel.

 

[tomcas1]

Can you try it without overclocking?

 

[Avalon]

Yeah. I'll give it a shot. I'll report back in 15 minutes.

 

[moonsite]

I suspect it might be your video card. Maybe because you had softmodded it.

 

[Avalon]

I'm currently running an XGI Volari 3 right now, actually, and not my 9500. I get the same issue on both cards, so it's not the video card(s).

 

[Avalon]

Crashed again, 5 minutes into it. Nearly the same spot. You'd think the DVD itself was at fault because of that, but it's spotless, and I've put countless movie DVDs in here and they all do it.

*Edit*
It's very weird. If I wipe the DVDs off, they will make it past their initial crash point, but crash further into the movie. Otherwise, they crash at the same place. There are no scratches or marks that I can see on them. I don't see how it can be the DVDs when they are brand new retail DVDs, and it's happened with about 6-8 of them so far in the past couple of months.

 

[WebDude]

Anything else running (programs, processes) that shouldn't be? It almost sounds like somethings using up memory on you. I take it the DVD drive itself doesn't make any noise, or show any signs of running slowly.

 

[Avalon]

Doesn't appear to show any signs of running slowly at all. I had taskmanager open while running one of the movies, and things looked as they should I believe. The only thing using any CPU power was the media player I was using to play the movie. It was hitting about 50% CPU usage, with the other 50% idle at pretty much all times.

 

[asm0deus]

does it cause the program to crash or does the program sit there like its waiting? maybe your IDE cable or that IDE channel (try setting it up as a slave on the other channel) ! or maybe you need new dvd software

 

[Avalon]

The programs themselves will specifically crash. The windows error popper upper will tell me that it caught the program in the middle of a crash, and I can end the process on it. That's about it. Unfortunately, I have the newest version of PowerDVD, and I think I'm one version shy of the newest version of WMP. I'm going to try setting the drive up as a slave on my primary IDE channel and see if that fixes the problem. Perhaps I've got a bad cable (I'm not using the one that came with my mobo, these are shrinkwrapped ones I received from a friend...not like they help the already horrid airflow in my case, lol).

 

[Avalon]

I put my drive on the primary IDE channel as a slave device to my HDD. Played a movie, and WMP crashed within five minutes. I am utterly stumped.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Avalon
As the title states, I can't playback DVD movies on my DVD drive. It's a lite-on CDRW/DVD combo drive. The model is this one. Maybe someone can help me figure this out.

Here's the problem. I can run DVD movies, but after 5-15 minutes (it varies), the video will crawl to a halt, and then WMP (or PowerDVD) will crash. I basically have to restart the video and use scene selection half a dozen times to finish watching a movie.

Check your CPU temps, and your RAM. It sounds like your CPU may be overheating.

What kind of mobo, CPU, and OS are you running, and have you tried using Prime95 as a stress-test on your system? If the CPU is overheating or the RAM is unstable, it can often detect that. Be sure to leave it running for at least 24 hours (overnight) to be sure.

 

[Avalon]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Originally posted by: Avalon
As the title states, I can't playback DVD movies on my DVD drive. It's a lite-on CDRW/DVD combo drive. The model is this one. Maybe someone can help me figure this out.

Here's the problem. I can run DVD movies, but after 5-15 minutes (it varies), the video will crawl to a halt, and then WMP (or PowerDVD) will crash. I basically have to restart the video and use scene selection half a dozen times to finish watching a movie.

Check your CPU temps, and your RAM. It sounds like your CPU may be overheating.

What kind of mobo, CPU, and OS are you running, and have you tried using Prime95 as a stress-test on your system? If the CPU is overheating or the RAM is unstable, it can often detect that. Be sure to leave it running for at least 24 hours (overnight) to be sure.

Yes...I'm an overclocker, I prime often. I even stated earlier that I primed again just a day ago to double check, and I also tried an underclock. My CPU temps are pretty good for Florida. I idle at around 40C, and load at around 46C. That's with my CPU running at 216x10 on 1.5v right now. I've had this setup for a good half year now, and it's never had a stability issue.

The hardware I'm running is what you see listed in my sig, on windows xp pro sp1.

I appreciate you trying, though.
This is just the strangest thing ever.

 

[bacillus]

Can you confirm that the drive is using DMA and not PIO transfer mode.

 

[Avalon]

These transfer modes are new concepts to me. I did a quick google and it seems the gist of it is that PIO is the old way of transfering data between opticals or such, and DMA is the new way. I wasn't quite sure where to check for this, but in my bios I did locate some related information.

My onboard IDE channel1 and channel0 were both enabled.

Primary Master PIO = auto
Primary Slave PIO = auto
Primary Master UDMA = auto
Primary Slave UDMA = auto

Secondary Master PIO = auto
etc.
etc.
etc.

I have the options of changing auto to modes 0-4.

Would a difference between the two modes cause such a video playback problem with my optical drive in windows?
Might I need to manually change one of those settings?

 

[Avalon]

Bump for a possible solution or more info on PIO vs. UDAM transfer mode and if it could cause errors if I'm using the wrong one?