[BikeMike]

Having now spent too long googling this problem and not fixing it, I turn to the Monkey for help. The DVD drive (Pioneer DVR-K15) on my laptop has stopped playing DVDs--sort of. The audio and video playback is so choppy it is not understandable (and quite irritating). I've tried different players, and none of them work, though some seem slightly better than others. It's not the DVD discs, because they work fine on other computers. The drive seems to read data CDs ok though.

Things I've tried:

• checking that DMA is on
• checking for duplicated audio and video codecs
• re-installing the drive (uninstalling it and rebooting)

Help?

 

[$tinkle]

seems like a sw problem. assuming you've gone through the steps of: upgraded all your drivers, re-install if still not working, kill all other potentially competing tasks, ensuring you have enough horse power to run it, i got nuthin.

is this xp, vista, mac, linux, other?

 

[BikeMike]

Running XP sp3. It's a 1.6GHz AMD Turion64 with 1gb of RAM, and there aren't any other intensive processes going on, so there should be plenty of resources. Seems like the only drivers are through Windows and it claims there are no updates available.

I guess I try uninstalling all media players and re-installing them one at a time.

 

[syadasti]

Try a codec pack or VLC:

http://www.free-codecs.com/K_Lite_Codec_Pack_download.htm

http://www.videolan.org/

 

[H8R]

Maybe the drive needs the firmware updated?

 

[BikeMike]

Yeah. I use VLC and have now installed the K-lite pack. I guess I'll try updating the firmware a bit later after I have a chance to read about flashing the drive.

 

[Arkayne]

I'd go to the Device Manager, uninstall the dvd drive, shut down, unplug the drive's ribbon cable, boot to desktop, shutdown, plug in the ribbon cable, power on the system and let windows auto-detect and reinstall the drive.

 

[binary visions]

Can I just suggest the really simple explanation that maybe it's got a dirty lens? Try buying one of those CD/DVD cleaners.

 

[BikeMike]

The lens cleaner kit helped, but it's not totally fixed. Now the audio is somewhat understandable and everything happens in slow, only slight jerkey motion. This is a remarkable improvement, but still pretty much unwatchable. Could it be that there is a micro scratch on the lens?