whenever i put a cd of any kind in, usually music or dvd, not only does all of my sound (on the disc and playing from the actual laptop) become choppy but my whole computer lags. it writes and import CDs super slow now, and dvds will play at full speed but the audio is very choppy. any ideas what it could be?
Interesting problem. Almost sounds like the IDE channels, or at least the secondary, is set to PIO mode rather than DMA or UDMA.
Right click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties". Click on the "Hardware" tab, then the "Device Manager" button. In Device Manager, expand (click +) IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers. Check the transfer mode for each IDE channel as follows:
Right click on Primary IDE channel and choose "Properties". Click the "Advanced Settings" tab. Make sure "DMA if available" is shown in the Transfer Mode field. If not, select it from the drop-down menu and click "Ok".
Right click on Secondary IDE channel and choose "Properties". Click the "Advanced Settings" tab. Make sure "DMA if available" is shown in the Transfer Mode field. If not, select it from the drop-down menu and click "Ok".
If you make any changes, reboot…then try the sound.
Let us know what you find the Transfer Mode set to.
well that was the case, it was the secondary, although i rebooted and tried it and the sound is still choppy. i looked again, and although it says DMA if available in the drop down, it says PIO in the actual box. its a school computer, which is odd because every other dell other kids have gotten that ive checked has the right drop down and it says DMA in their boxes as well. any ideas?
Let's toggle the settings and see if it allows the change. Go back to the Secondary IDE channel properties and change "DMA if available" to "PIO only" and click "Ok". Then change it back to "DMA if available" and click "Ok" again.
Expand the "DVD/CD-ROM drives" category, right click on your optical drive, choose "Uninstall", and accept the change.
Close Device Manager and reboot.
Try your sound and let us know if there is a change.
will i be able to use my CD drive after i reboot? im assuming uninstalling it renders it unusable, but i can tell you if i cant use it the sound will be fine since no CDs can be played, but if the drive works again i can check it out. i just want to make sure before i go uninstaling anything.
The optical drive will reinstall automatically when you reboot. The reasoning behind uninstalling the drive is to eliminate any devices on the Secondary IDE channel so it can reset to it's default, which is the DMA transfer mode.
In Device Manager, expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, right click on the Primary IDE controller, and choose "Uninstall"…accept the change. Do this for the Secondary controller, as well. Reboot.
The channel controllers and any hardware attached to them will reinstall when Windows starts. Once Windows has fully loaded and all hardware has been installed, you will be prompted to reboot again…do so.
Try the sound…
well it all works now, but i made another observation. when i used to start up i would get one of those "click next to install the driver" windows but the device was always unknown and never worked, and now it doesnt come up at all. maybe it had something to do with the cd drive? either way everything works fine now, i thank you very much for your time and help!
I'm glad that sorted the problem out for you.
Without knowing exactly what driver was trying to load, it's hard to say what device was throwing that error. That said, it was likely that error that caused the IDE channel to switch to the Programmed Input/Output transfer mode. When a device connected to an IDE channel throws more that 6 consecutive errors, Windows will force the affected channel into PIO mode and will not allow it to be switched back to DMA without uninstalling and reinstalling the channel and the devices connected to it.
Take care…
wannabe1
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Without knowing exactly what driver was trying to load, it's hard to say what device was throwing that error. That said, it was likely that error that caused the IDE channel to switch to the Programmed Input/Output transfer mode. When a device connected to an IDE channel throws more that 6 consecutive errors, Windows will force the affected channel into PIO mode and will not allow it to be switched back to DMA without uninstalling and reinstalling the channel and the devices connected to it.
Take care…
wannabe1