Optical drive is slowing down my whole system.

[jakebc24]

Hi,
For the last couple of weeks I haven't been able to listen to CDs r watch DVDs on my laptop as the optical drive slows down my whole system to the point where the mouse won't even work properly.
I think the problem seems to have started when I downloaded a gamecube emulator and a week later (under the influence of lots of Sambuka, Jack Daniels and Corona) though it would be the best idea in the world to insert a gamecube disk and play some Timesplitters 2.
I have tried a system restore, to no avail, and I'm wondering if it's possible to have caused any lasting damage to the optical drive.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks,
Jake

 

[aevm]

With a little luck it's just a software issue.

Have you checked for spyware? If you haven't, download Spybot and AdAware, let them get the latest virus defs, then run them.

Do you have an anti-virus program (McAfee, Norton, etc.)?

 

[chookman]

It maybe possible that your Upper and Lower filters a screwed up. There are registry keys that denote the upper and lower filters, these basically control what goes in/out of the device. Link below goes to microsoft knowledge base that are easy to follow.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314060/EN-US/

 

[jakebc24]

I have tried the registry filters thingy and that didn't work unfortunatly.
Also i have a pretty good version of Sophos antivirus, plus Adaware and Malware protection programs.
My freinds seem to think it's a problem with the processing, but i have a really good spec for a laptop so I wouldn't have though it would be that.
Another point is that if I rip CDs, they play back fine afterwards, just not if it is straight off the CD.
Thanks for your help on this by the way.

 

[Slobogob]

Hi,
For the last couple of weeks I haven't been able to listen to CDs r watch DVDs on my laptop as the optical drive slows down my whole system to the point where the mouse won't even work properly.
I think the problem seems to have started when I downloaded a gamecube emulator and a week later (under the influence of lots of Sambuka, Jack Daniels and Corona) though it would be the best idea in the world to insert a gamecube disk and play some Timesplitters 2.
I have tried a system restore, to no avail, and I'm wondering if it's possible to have caused any lasting damage to the optical drive.
Can anyone help me?
Thanks,
Jake

Have you checked the Hardware tab? Is the drive running in PIO?

 

[cfvh600]

Your drive might be running in PIO mode.This will cause it to really slow down.Mine have done that in the past, then I've uninstalled the device and rebooted, after which the problem went away and my drive runs in UDMA2.

 

[aevm]

That actually happened to my Dad once when he was trying to install a game from a very scratched DVD (from the public library, you can imagine). It turns out that there's code in XP Media Center (not sure about other types of Windows) that count how many times the drive has failed in a row and if you reach the limit the drive is turned to PIO mode (because it's slower and Microsoft decided it has a better chance to succeed). I think there was a KB article about it and some registry entry to modify if you hate this behaviour and don't want to see it again.

And yes, PIO mode will consume more Processor time than DMA modes and can slow things down, that would explain the symptoms you're seeing.

Edit:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472