TM 8204 Sound / CD Issues

I just popped a CD in the drive and ripped it with iTunes.

Every time there is a CD access, the sound card goes "brreeep" - it sounded like a broken record.

The CD is fine, I tried it in other CD players, and the ripped MP3s are fine as well.

Anyone else had trouble with the line out on the 8204? Actually - not just the line out, it sounded just as bad on the internal speakers.

It _could_ be the CDs fault, but I can also hear other noise on the sound card, faint WiFi humming and such so I am afraid this is the sound card - which would mean a full mainboard replacement to fix it.

Any ideas would be appreciated. I would hate to turn it in yet again... I was going to say this is an excellent laptop, turning a blind eye on the generally dim and light-leaking display. But now the sound as well... sigh...

 

Did you check that the Mic isn't turned on, just a thought but it's kinda close to the CD drive and might end up accounting for that noise?

 

it's not the mike - iTunes performance is generally terrible, ripping at 5x and using 100% CPU. playing while ripping basically doesn't work at all... i know iTunes is a resource hog, but my old Pentium M based Acer easily got 15x or more ripping CDs.

i now noticed that if any sound plays while I am ripping, it's like it is playing at half speed with lots of static. when i am not ripping CDs, sound is fine.

 

It's not a driver issue is it? And does it affect any other programs?

 

Re: Does it affect any other programs.

Update: Yes. I can't play any DVDs either. In Media Player 11, the DVD starts playing but it's so "slow" that it's skipping and the sound is all distorted.

In general, anything that uses the DVD / CD drive is terrible. Even copying files from a CD uses 100% CPU. So I am thinking this is either a very strange hardware issue or has something to do with the drivers for the CD. Only that as far as I know, the CD drive drivers are usually just the ones built-in to Windows.

Could it be the sound card drivers? Maybe they do something weird with the CD? Or anything else that hooks itself into the CD? I don't have AV software running...

The sound card is suspect because of the Realtek drivers and because the most obvious problems always have to do with CD + audio - crackling while ripping CDs, DVD audio distorted etc. Will go to Acer service center soon and demand a new DVD drive then we'll see...

 

It's most likely hardware related. I've never had that problem with mine although I do wish it would seek DVDs faster. Get the drive replaced and see if the issue occurs. In the meanwhile, have you updated the Realtek drivers?

 

Thanks for your responses - I resolved it! Somebody tipped me off to the fact that an IDE drive can revert to PIO mode under certain conditions. That's certainly weird, but it can happen for a variety of reasons, see here for more info:
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

In any case, I checked and my drive was in PIO mode even though I had "DMA if available" selected in the device manager.

I removed the CD drive using "Safely Remove Hardware" system tray icon, popped out the drive, put it back in, and bingo - suddenly it's in Ultra DMA mode 2!

And suddenly, the old performance is back. No skipping CDs, no skipping DVDs, iTunes rips at 12x to 20x (which still sucks but that's probably down to iTunes more than anything else).

 

Wow, it's been a long time since I last saw that article that I've completely forgotten about that possibility . Glad you fixed it.