choppy cd sound

[SkyTrax]

hi,

i have a problem with playing audio cd's since a couple of months now...the sound iiiissss veerrryyyyy chhhhoooppppyyyyyyy , like skipping very rapidely...it's sounds like a cheap effect that change the tempo of the song ! My two cd rom drives do this with all cd's, and all players that i have; Windows Media Player, winamp and even Creative Media Player... anyone have an idea to solve this problem ? All others sounds plays fine, mp3, video clips, etc...

Thanks for your help:)

[mjc]

Is playing of digital audio enabled for the CD players?

What version of Windows are you running?

[SkyTrax]

Thanks for the reply

I'm running WinXp Home SP2, the cd's plays in digital mode in winamp, but in analog in windows media player (i think, not sure), controlled with the "CD Audio" slider in the sound card mixer. Both ways do the same problem...

[mjc]

OK...go to Device Manager and then check the DMA settings on the IDE controller that the drives are on...probably Secondary.

[SkyTrax]

I just checked the properties and yes there is a check mark in the "Enabling digital audio for this cd-rom drive"

In the device manager both cd-rom are on the secondary channel, in PIO Mode, automatic detection...

Thanks a lot :)

[SkyTrax]

Hi again,

maybe it's a clue for my problem but the skipping sound happens always exactly at the same time that the HD is in activity...like a fraction of second every 3-4 seconds...

[SkyTrax]

Hi again,

For your information, i finally found a solution for my skipping sound problem!The problem turns out to be an automatic 'feature' of Windows XP, as explained on this MS Windows Platform Development Web Site:

-----------
For repeated DMA errors.

Windows XP will turn off DMA mode for a device after encountering certain errors during data transfer operations. If more that six DMA transfer timeouts occur, Windows will turn off DMA and use only PIO mode on that device.

In this case, the user cannot turn on DMA for this device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the device.

Windows XP downgrades the Ultra DMA transfer mode after receiving more than six CRC errors. Whenever possible, the operating system will step down one UDMA mode at a time (from UDMA mode 4 to UDMA mode 3, and so on).
------------

So I uninstalled the Secondary IDE channel and rebooted. Windows XP reinstalled the IDE drivers and redetected the Cd-rom drives. The drives came back to UDMA Mode 2 with no choppy sound anymore!

A+
Frank