A possible solution for stuttering playback

mba · 2008-03-29, 11:53

Hi

I just wanted to share this information, maybe it can help others which have experinced similar symptons and problems as I have. One of the problems I have had with stuttering playback, was that just once in a while after coming out of standby (I think) something unknown would happen which would cause periodic stutters (with about 2sec period) when watching tv, movies or generally accessing the disk. I tried everything from repairing the disk with checkdisk tools guessing it was a disk failure, to looking at the system statistics with process explorer from sysinternals which showed excessive load on the hardware interrupts. Nothing helped and I had to reinstall windows+everything else. This has happened 4-5 times now, and I was just about to give, install linux and put mythtv on the box, when I stumbled across these three sources: Tutorials-Win.com >> XP Hardware >> High CPU usage for hardware interrupts - Microsoft Windows Forum
DMA reverts to PIO | Windows Problem Solver
IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors occur

The problem was (drums please!) that windows in its infinite wisdom reverted my disk from UDMA-6 to PIO because of multiple timeouts accessing the disk. This regression was not temporary, as the PIO is set as THE mode for the disk for all time hereafter. The mode for the disk can be seen in the device manager for the ide channel in question.
One of the solutions as I read in the above source, was to remove the ide channel and then restart. Upon bootup windows would rediscover the ide channel and renegotiate the mode for the disk, and voilá I had UDMA-6 back again.

best regards
Martin

prozacdk · 2008-04-14, 17:40

Ohh yes...

Thank you so much... Was getting the stuttering suddenly, and was going mad about it..

Now I can watch tv again, without seeing DR Nyheder as if they was slowed down to half the speed

mba · 2008-04-14, 21:55

you're welcome,

I afterwards discovered that the disk was damaged and that the timeouts was caused by read-errors which soon resulted in a complete disk-failure. So maybe you should look at the integrity of your data and the state of the disk, before just re-enabling DMA and thinking everything is ok.

regards
Martin

2008-03-29, 11:53	#1 (permalink)
mba Portal Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Aarhus Age: 32 Posts: 59 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post Country:	A possible solution for stuttering playback Hi I just wanted to share this information, maybe it can help others which have experinced similar symptons and problems as I have. One of the problems I have had with stuttering playback, was that just once in a while after coming out of standby (I think) something unknown would happen which would cause periodic stutters (with about 2sec period) when watching tv, movies or generally accessing the disk. I tried everything from repairing the disk with checkdisk tools guessing it was a disk failure, to looking at the system statistics with process explorer from sysinternals which showed excessive load on the hardware interrupts. Nothing helped and I had to reinstall windows+everything else. This has happened 4-5 times now, and I was just about to give, install linux and put mythtv on the box, when I stumbled across these three sources: Tutorials-Win.com >> XP Hardware >> High CPU usage for hardware interrupts - Microsoft Windows Forum DMA reverts to PIO \| Windows Problem Solver IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors occur The problem was (drums please!) that windows in its infinite wisdom reverted my disk from UDMA-6 to PIO because of multiple timeouts accessing the disk. This regression was not temporary, as the PIO is set as THE mode for the disk for all time hereafter. The mode for the disk can be seen in the device manager for the ide channel in question. One of the solutions as I read in the above source, was to remove the ide channel and then restart. Upon bootup windows would rediscover the ide channel and renegotiate the mode for the disk, and voilá I had UDMA-6 back again. best regards Martin

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2008-04-14, 17:40	#2 (permalink)
prozacdk Portal Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 10 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Ohh yes... Thank you so much... Was getting the stuttering suddenly, and was going mad about it.. Now I can watch tv again, without seeing DR Nyheder as if they was slowed down to half the speed

2008-04-14, 21:55	#3 (permalink)
mba Portal Member Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Aarhus Age: 32 Posts: 59 Thanks: 0 Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post Country:	you're welcome, I afterwards discovered that the disk was damaged and that the timeouts was caused by read-errors which soon resulted in a complete disk-failure. So maybe you should look at the integrity of your data and the state of the disk, before just re-enabling DMA and thinking everything is ok. regards Martin