[deano_b]

Hi all I have a Packard Bell pc with a Philips DVDR1628P1 internal cdr/dvdr. All was fine until recently; when I play a dvd the playback is very choppy, or when am burning a cd/dvd, all other programs become slow ( eg - playing an MP3 playing from HDD whilst burning renders the MP3 choppy too ). Also burning nowadays is very hit and miss and sometimes locks up, wasting a disc! Have updated all video/audio codecs, but nothing seems to work! Any ideas!? Many thanks!

[maynardvdm]

Hi

Welcome to Free PC Help.

How old is the DVD writer?

What is the computer spec? (RAM, CPU, etc)

[Dalo Harkin]

Burning CD/DVD will max most CPU's - it is not recommended to use other programs when burning.

[RandyL]

Yes you really shouldn't do anything else while burning.

All was fine until recently?
Burning is hit and miss?
Playback is an issue?

Only do one thing at a time as you may be taxing the system as Dave says.

If it still has problems then I suspect the same thing as maynard. Your dvd/cd drive is failing.

Run some tests and let us know.

[Seth]

Another option is to try try burning at half the max speed.

If it's ok at half speed, then the burner is failing, or the lens needs to be cleaned using a cleaning kit.

[deano_b]

Hi all - thanks for the replies - my pc is quite decent - Winxp pro, SP2, Pentium 4 3gz, 1g RAM, so it should be more than capable of multitasking! In any case, playback is still choppy when playing a dvd when nothing else is running ( on more than one piece of software too - WMP, VLC, BS Player ). So I know its non a software issue. I may try cleaning the lens as to be fair theres a lot of dust in the area of my PC! if this fails, any other suggestions!? Thanks in advance!

[Wolfeymole]

Well you might like to get XP SP3 deano.

How to obtain the latest Windows XP service pack