Heeeeeeelp!

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Race Idiot

Race Idiot

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Sao Tome and Principe
Sao Tome and Principe
Ok Im calling out to you computer savvy guys to help me out a little.

Computer Specs
Processor P3 450
Memory 2 64 100mhz dimm 128 in total
Western Digital 10 GB HDD
Toshiba DVD Rom SD-M1212
3DFX Voodoo3 16mb graphics card
M-Audio Audiophile 2496
Hauppage Win/TV card
Motorola SM56 Modem
Operating System Win98 second edition

My Problem
I rebuilt the machine from scratch and re-installed Win98 all the drivers installed ok and everything seems to function properly. But when I try to play DVD films on the PC (Im using the software included PowerDVD V2.5). When I try to play a film it starts off ok and you can see the drive lights flashing away and the picture seems fine. But after a while the whole thing seems to stop working (or it seems to slow to a crawl) and it just locks up and the only way to get it working is to skip to the next chapter or wait for ages and it will do it automatically. I have tried enabling DMA access but that doesnt make any difference either. Also the two drives (the DVD rom drive and the HDD) are on separate IDE controllers (IDE 0 for the HDD and IDE 1 for the DVD) anyone got any clue what the hell is wrong?

BTW this is not my machine it is a relatives who basically destroyed it. If it was up to me I wouldve installed WIN2K or XP but she said she wanted it exactly how it was before so I kept it with 98.

Any suggestions or help would be nice :)
 
Do you mean A firmware update?
The drive didnt come with any software so im assuming you mean a firmware update. Ill try and get a newer version of PowerDVD. I think I can get that off a mate.

Thanx
 
Come to think of it that sounds like a good Idea, some of my CD-R disks werent reading properly either. Mind you some drives are quite fussy with cheap CD-R discs
 
If your dvd drive is not reading burned cd's well (read: mine reads EVERYTHING I have thrown at it) then it is a possibility that a new DVD drive is in order.

What brand of DVD is it?

It will have drivers, just that it installs them when you install the software, so they might be a bit old.

I am assuming here that you have no IRQ conflicts anywhere.

Also, try air blowing out the ports for the DVD and the motherboard, and plug it back in firmly. This may also cause a problem. I don't know why it does, but from experience, it does.
 
Its a Toshiba DVD Rom SD-M1212 Ive got no IRQ conflicts, errrr Im highly dubious about the blowing business, but ill give it a go
 
Yeah I was meaning to get compressed air for a while, works wonders with dusty computers. I tred booting from my CD of Win2000 and it boots up then while it loads the first few files the drive just seems to die. Is it ok to use the compressed air on the internals of the drive??
 
It sounds like the head-moving motor on the DVD drive has had it, and can no longer make small incremental movements across the disc. See if you can borrow another DVD drive, or if you can try using your drive on another person's PC.

If the drive's hardware is working OK, run your DVDs in a window, then run Performance Monitor at the same time. Watch for memory, processor, and disk page file usage. If any of them start to get high when you notice the performance drop-off, then there's a resource leak in your DVD-ROM drivers or the movie-playing software.
 

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