Teac CD-W540E Problem

[Radgam]

OS - WindowsXP SP1
Processor - AthlonXP 2200+
Ram - 512DDR
HD - 80gb

Stats over with, i've got major problems with my drive. If i try to play an audio cd (tried with quite a few) the playback is slightly slower than usual and it skips, jerks and jumps something awful.

Same if i play games, etc. Screen will jump a lot and it's pretty bad (because i presume it's failing to read).

Thought it was connected to things like WinCDR and blindwrite which i installed recently but i got rid of them both and i've still got probs.

Now, it may seem as if the drive has gone completely but, this is the thing that gets me, i use that drive to converting my audio cds to mp3s and while it takes maybe a tad longer than usual, it does extract them fine. Also, it still writes cds fine.

So, any ideas? If it's broke i'm not a happy chappy as it's only 6months-ish old and i have the feeling the stuff i installed caused the problem

Help!

[Cricket]

Try using a CD lens cleaner (the kind you use in audio CD players).

Cricket

[Radgam]

guess i haven't posted here in a little while
I tried the lens cleaner and i still get the same problem

I dual boot my computer so that gave me a place to test my drive under something other than WinXP and it worked fine. Reading at speeds around 7.4x where as with XP i am only reading around 5.4x or less.

I've heard that installing too many different CDR programs can cause software to conflict with each other. Overall i think i've installed:

Nero, Padus DiscJuggler, WinCDR, Blindwrite and maybe a few other miscellaneous things in there. i'll use cd to mp3 ripping for this example (and I use exact audio copy).

I've tried using Native Win32 interface, an external ASPI device and also something called ASAPI interface but i always get the same problem reading from CDs. It's not just with exact audio copy but also just playing cds in winamp forexample

I can tell there seems to be some sorta major underlying problem here. Any ideas?

[kissfan]

I think the best way to see, is to try it in another machine.

[Radgam]

well i don't have another machine available to use but i know it worked 100% okay under Win98 but underXP everything was just messed up :/

[kissfan]

It shouldn't make a big difference but do you have DMA enabled for the drive.

[mike breck]

If you upgraded from Win98 to XP (i.e. you didn't do a "clean" install of XP) and you have used so many different burning programs - then you might be better backing up your data, wiping the HD, and doing a clean install of XP.

That's a definite way to get rid of any debris flying around your system.

However, before doing that, I would agree with Kissfan, it's pity you can't try the drive on another PC - just to make sure it's not faulty.

If you can't, and the problem re-occurs after a clean instal, then, that again, would point to a fault with the drive rather than an OS or software problem.

Especially if you have SP1 installed with all the bugfixes.

How do you have the drive setup - Master Slave, or Cable Select?

Which channel is it on (IDE1 or IDE2) and what is it sharing the channel with?

What sort of IDE cable are you using - 40 wire or 80 wire?

Have you tried a different cable?

HTH

[Radgam]

WinXP was a clean install (like i said above i dual boot so i've got Win98 running in one partition and WinXP in another partition, both of which were clean installs).

I'll see if i can get hold of another PC and test it out. I'm just not sure why it would work okay under my 98 partiton not my XP one hence why i think something i've installed has screwed xp (messed with the aspi interface).

I hate computers My drive did seem fine before some of the CDR software i installed recently.