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Topic: Problem playing Audio from Cd drive (Read 15980 times) previous topic - next topic
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Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #25 –
Good question.  I actually rip using CDex, not EAC, but here is what happens.  All the MP3's ripped to my computer hard drive play perfectly through Winamp and on my iPod when copied from Winamp to the iPod using ml_iPod.  However the original CD will not play correctly from the drive AND MP3 files that play fine on the computer will not play correctly when burned to a CD using Nero and then played in the CD drive.

Go figure??????????

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #26 –
I've had similar problems occur with both of my optical drives (although more for one than the other) at the beginnings of discs, although mainly burnt ones. Try listening to the disc in foobar2000, letting track 1 to start playing, then seeking to the middle of track 1 and letting it play some more, jumping to track 2, and after a little delay, back to track 1. It fixes my problems all the time.

But then again, I'm not an expert, and I don't even know what my solution fixes. It's just an idea I'm throwing out there with the hope that it works

UED77
UED77
wavpack 4.50 -hx3; lame 3.97 -V4 --vbr-new

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #27 –
Could it be related to this? Quoted from the Interesting Results with RMAA (pics attached) thread:

Quote
It seems that your CD-rom drive affects significantly the power supply of the computer, that in turn produce amplitude modulation on the analog output / input of the soundcard, which is visible in your graphs at the bottom of the spikes.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=363369"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #29 –
Is the drive in a UDMA mode or a PIO mode? Can you play the CD with EAC using Alternate CD play routines? (found under EAC Options/General).

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #30 –
Never Again:  How do I check whether UDMA or PIO?

Kjoonlee:  No, it is the same on a/c power.  I don't totally understand that other thread, but as my problem is sound SO bad that you can not listen to the CD in the drive, I don't think it is the same thing.


UED77:  It is the same played through different players and it is the same where ever I am in a song.

Thanks for the continuing suggestions!  I am just happy that I don't really have to use the drive to listen to music as I can rip from it just fine.  Otherwise I would be REAL frustrated as I try to get this figured out!

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #31 –
shepard: Regarding UDMA / PIO, goto Control Panel > Admin Tools > Computer Management > Device Manager, then under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, select the channel your CD drive is connected to (Primary or Secondary).
Click Properties and goto Advanced Settings; find your CD drive (master is first, slave is second), change the mode, and see if quality improves.

UED77
UED77
wavpack 4.50 -hx3; lame 3.97 -V4 --vbr-new

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #32 –
UED77 -  Maybe this is because this is a laptop, but....  When I go to the controllers, I only have "Intel 82801FB/FBM Ultra ATA Storage Contollers - 266F" and "Primary IDE channel".  There is no secondary channel listed.  The primary channnel has two devices, but they are not named or described.  It just says "auto detection".  Both say "DMA if Available".  One is running UDMA, the other PIO.  No way to change them?

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #33 –
PIO mode is quite likely your problem. If you only have a primary channel, you can be 99% sure the hard drive is on master, and the CD-ROM is on slave. On my drives, this is the easiest way to tell when the drive goes over to PIO mode, is when CD playback goes terrible.

Windows XP (2000 too) does some error detection on the ATA channels. After (if I remember right) 3 transfer errors in maybe 5 minutes, it switches to PIO mode so it can double check all transfers from there out.

PIO stands for Processed Input / Output. All information from the CD-ROM is fed through the processor first. This is undesirable compared to DMA (Direct Memory Access).

WARNING - Potentially messy fix below (if something goes wrong)

I believe the fix is going to be (presuming this is Windows XP, DO NOT attempt the below on Windows 2000) going into Device manager and deleting the primary channel.  Leave the controller itself alone, we only want to delete the primary channel underneath it.

Reboot your computer, the OS should reinstall the channel, reboot again, and see how it goes.

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #34 –
Yes it is XP.  I don't really understand your instructions, though.  I am tired tonight, so I will re-read them tomorrow. 

If the cd drive is slave the option to force DMA is unavailable, grayed out. 

Why would I delete the Primary channel if that is the hard drive?  Could you post the exact steps to get to the spot to delete the channel, not the controller?  Like UED77 did with the>signs>? 

Thanks!

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #35 –
I'm sorry, I should have clarified.  When XP detects errors and reverts the channel to PIO mode on its own, it locks it that way so that a user (or the auto setting) cannot simply revert back to DMA.

Description of the problem from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/ide-dma.mspx

Microsoft's description of the workaround:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...N-US;817472#kb4

Control Panel > Admin Tools > Computer Management > Device Manager.  Find IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, select the primary channel (should be the only channel you have, from your previous post) and uninstall the primary channel.  Reboot.  Probably reboot again after the computer comes up.  If the CD drive channel reverts to PIO mode again, you have a problem.

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #36 –
Ok - Thanks.  I get it now and will try this.  One further question....

The errors that you refer to that XP detects, can they be the following?  Sometimes when I was ripping my older CD's on to the computer using CDex, there would be a series of stutter errors on a track.  Once in a great while, a track would have so many, it would not rip and I would then skip it.  Would these sorts of errors revert the cd drive to PIO mode?    Or are the errors you refer to something else of a different type?

Thanks again for your help!

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #37 –
To my knowledge, they really shouldn't be.  They are CRC errors, which should only happen because of problems in data transfer, not because of reads.  This is because the drive itself calculates the CRC and sets its value on for whatever particular chunk of data is being sent back to the motherboard.  For there to be a mismatch, either the drive is calculating them badly or the data is getting corrupted in transit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #38 –
@shepard
Read errors can, in fact, revert the drive from DMA mode to PIO mode in Windows XP. Usually it takes 6 errors per second, or something like that. When that happens, XP reverts to lower DMA mode (if your drive is using UDMA mode 4, it reverts to UDMA mode 3 and so on until it's in PIO mode).
Here's the official statement from Microsoft about that and the fix for the issue. Be careful, though, because you will need to edit your registry.
Another link to read...

Good luck!
lame -V 0

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #39 –
psycho - Thanks for the links.  I am now almost certain this is the cause of the problem.  What do you think about this "quick" solution offered in the last link you posted.  Seems easier than editing the registry manually.

Quote from link:

Quick solution
If you're not interested in the details, but just want to fix this problem as quickly as possible:

Double click here.
Click on the [Open] button to open the program file.
Despite the warning click on the [Execute] button to execute the file resetdma.vbs.
If the program found ATA channels to reset, reboot your computer and test all drives.

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #40 –
You're welcome. I think the Quick solution should work just fine. However, I would recommend reading the last chapter "Desensitize Your Computer's IDE Channels", which links you to the Microsoft page I also gave you. There you can find how to make XP less sensitive to read errors (under MORE INFORMATION), so it will not revert DMA modes based on only a few errors. This almost completely disables XP's ability to revert DMA modes. From this change on, it should only happen with seriously bad drives, that are uncapable of normal operation with DMA turned on. I don't know of such a drive.

EDIT: some info added
lame -V 0

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #41 –
Thanks again!  This was exactly the problem.  I am now back in DMA mode and the sound is perfect!  I will do the desensitize thing also and hopefully that will make it difficult for XP to do this in the future.

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #42 –
Hi. first post, so go easy!   

I think i have exactly the same issue here, but twofold!

I've been ripping my CD collection to MP3, sharing the load between the two internal drives I have installed - CDRW and DVDRW. I noticed after a while that my CDRW drive was only ripping at 12ish speed vs the 40+ speed it had been doing. But the main issue is that the sound on the CDRW drive, and especially the DVDRW drive, is very jumpy when playing CDs/DVDs real time (ripped MP3s play fine however).

I have a Dell 9150, 320Gb C Drive spread over two 160GB (SATA STRIPE?) disks, and as already mentioned two internal writers (CDRW drive and a DVDRW drive).

Speaking with Dell support their response was "nuke the PC to base config as delivered" which I flatly refused to do!

After reading around via Google this DMA/PIO thing struck me as the likely issue. Sure enough when I go into device manager I see that both devices on the primary IDE channel are running in PIO mode even though "DMA if available" is selected. Note, there is no secondary IDE channel.

I've tried toggling "DMA if available" to "PIO Mode Only", rebooting, then back to "DMA if available" and reboot - no difference. (MS quote this as a possible fix).

Then I tried uninstalling the DVDRW drive, it reinstalls on reboot but it's still stuck in PIO mode.

My next hunch was to uninstall the primary IDE channel but I've chickened out until now because I'm worried if I do that I'll lose the connection to the hard drive. I've seen many warnings saying don't uninstall the channel if your windows OS is running on there! Trouble is, I don't know if it is or not! Question: on the primary IDE channel I see 2 devices which I presume are my DVD and CD drives - hence is the Hard drive not linked via this primary IDE channel, if so I'm presumably safe to uninstall it?

Of course, my other option looks to be to run that neat VB script referenced in one of the links above which looks as if it will work by changing the necessary registry settings. However, I'm a bit concerned by the statement "some Dell computers have DMA disabled in their BIOS by default for the second hard disk". I can't see what mode my hard disks are running in hence if the 2nd hard drive is meant to be in PIO and this script switches it to DMA I'm wondering what effect that will have? But my hunch is that this statement only applies to hard drives configured as, say, C and D?

So, any advice appreciated. I suppost ultimately I'm asking what the least risky thing to do? Run the VB script, or uninstall the primary IDE channel?

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #43 –
I would start a new thread.  Posting at the bottom of an old one may not get you as many new looks or as quick help as a new thread.
 

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #44 –
@TheGrimRipper

I would suggest you check your BIOS settings first. Then, if you are too paranoid, go to safe mode in your Windows XP. You can remove IDE channels there and maybe the controller too. After that, I suggest you read through the links I gave shepard and folow other instructions to desentisize your XP DMA...

Good luck!
lame -V 0

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #45 –
Quote
Speaking with Dell support their response was "nuke the PC to base config as delivered" which I flatly refused to do!
Congratulations on refusing to be a sheep and deciding to find out on your own.

Quote
Note, there is no secondary IDE channel.
Most likely, it is disabled in the BIOS. You may want to go in there and enable it, and then put your opticals each on
a channel of its own. two devices competing on the same IDE channel may be a bottleneck.

Quote
My next hunch was to uninstall the primary IDE channel but I've chickened out until now because I'm worried if I do that I'll lose the connection to the hard drive.
You have nothing to worry about it. All you have on that primary IDE is your two opticals, and you cannot have more than two devices on the same IDE channel.  Besides, the hard drive on the 9150 is SATA, and will be connected to a controller of its own.

Quote
However, I'm a bit concerned by the statement "some Dell computers have DMA disabled in their BIOS by default for the second hard disk". I can't see what mode my hard disks are running in hence if the 2nd hard drive is meant to be in PIO and this script switches it to DMA I'm wondering what effect that will have?
The VB script does its work in Windows registry, it cannot modify BIOS settings; another worry out of your way.

Quote
what the least risky thing to do? Run the VB script, or uninstall the primary IDE channel?
The latter. If the problem occurs again, you can run the script.

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #46 –
Many thanks Never_Again for taking the time to answer my queries. I'll give it a go.

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #47 –
Well, I didn't take your advice... instead I tried the script and... it worked!! Both drives are now Ultra DMA Mode 2 and play CDs and DVDs without skipping. And ripping is now 3 or 4 times faster. This VBScript has now taken pride of place on my desktop for when the inevitable happens again!!

Now, all I need to know is how to make my DVD drive multiregion - it's giving me just 4 chances or something to change region!!

Anyway, thanks immensely guys!! 

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #48 –
You'll have to flash the drive's firmware with RPC-1 firmware, and use a player like Media Player Classic most likely.
http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php for more info.

Problem playing Audio from Cd drive

Reply #49 –
Quote
You'll have to flash the drive's firmware with RPC-1 firmware, and use a player like Media Player Classic most likely.
http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php for more info.
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=374438"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks Firon, I'll take a look!