PC DVD/CD-Rom issue

[GirlGamer55]

I'v searched everywhere for something like my issue and have found jack, so I thought maybe someone on here might know whats wrong.

For the past...god idk two years? something has been wrong with my DVD/CD-Rom. Some days it won't even read DVD's other days it reads them and plays the movie half way through before freezing up on me. And very rarely will it play a whole movie through without issues. Also the DVD's get pretty warm/hot. If that matters.

From the little information I did find it sounds like it's pretty much dead/dying a slow death, and i'll have to replace it. I don't really want to replace it because I know jack all about opening up computers and...fiddling with things. I just want to know if I really do have to replace it or if it might be something else.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Buy a replacement for $20 or maybe less. Replacing it is easy, all you need is a screwdriver.

The only part you'll need your brain for is finding out what type of DVD drive you need. SATA has a 99% market share in modern computers, but if you aren't sure check Device Manager to find out what kind you need.

devmgmt.png (22.89 KiB) Viewed 468 times

[GirlGamer55]

So should I buy the exact same model as the one that's not working?

Also looking up my drive made me stumble across a Gateway support page which tells me this:

DVD movie or Music CD play is choppy


1.Make sure system resources are not low. Use the Windows Vista - System Slow checklist to check for low system resources.


2.Ensure that the CD/DVD drive controller transfer mode is set to DMA.

a.In the Start Search box, type Dev, and then click Device Manager.


b.Click the plus sign (+) in front of IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, then click ATA Device 0.
View Picture


c.Under Device Properties if there is no check mark in the box to the left of Enable DMA, click the box, then click OK.
View Picture


d.Repeat the above step if applicable to a another ATA Device shown on the displayed page.

It's choppy when and if it actually plays a dvd...and I followed the steps right up to 2b...I don't have a ATA Device 0 listed. Is that my problem?

[isiolia]

If you don't have ATA devices listed, I'd just assume your drive is SATA, in which case what it's telling you to check for is moot.

Basically, what can happen for a variety of reasons (though most commonly due to repeated bad reads) is that an IDE/ATA drive can get bumped down to PIO Mode, which is very slow compared to DMA/UDMA mode. 'course if that's the case, the instructions given likely wouldn't work anyway...usually the simplest fix is to remove/redetect the controller that the drive is attached to, since if Windows decided the device "needed" to use PIO mode, it'd just revert the setting (reinstalling the controller would reset it).

I've had that happen to my system way back when, and it's not quite the same - performance is just terrible and using the drive lags the system.

Far as I know, SATA always uses DMA anyway, so it's not really applicable.

As mentioned, a new DVD-RW is like $15-20. Just buy a decently rated one, doesn't need to be a direct replacement.

[s8n]

you could try the software LatencyMon , if theres something creating a bottleneck in your PC it will cause other things to act up.