My programs all got rather picky about how to play a CD.

December 18, 2005 1:05 PM

I had a brief power outage last night; today some of the computer programs are not reading a CD in the DVD drive correctly, while others still read it without a problem. What's going on?

I went to sleep with iTunes on and woke up with one of my clocks blinking and the computer showing the login screen. After booting up (win2000), the computer had some trouble recognizing the CD in the DVD drive. A reboot cleared that up, but now Winamp and Creative's player both play the CD with a lot of loud static overlaid (it sounds like a radio trying to pick up a fading station). Roxio's Easy CD Creator 5 has the same trouble on track preview; but iTunes and WinDVD both play it perfectly: clear, warm sound.

Do you have any idea what's likely gone wrong and how I should fix it? Is this a problem with the sound card? The DVD player? Something else entirely?

posted by Tuwa to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Power surges indeed tend to be more damaging to sound cards, but have you checked the sound card/speakers connections? That would be a major source of static.

Also, is the DVD player also a CD recorder? If so, try to record a CD and see how it goes. In my experience, modern CD players tend to break down gracefully (ie, they keep going as much as they can, some software with better error correction appear to work where others fail and all this time the player is slowly dying).
posted by nkyad at 1:26 PM on December 18, 2005

If you haven't done so already, do a hard boot. Make sure everything is powered off completely, and unplug your componets from the wall. This includes any network devices, like routers and external modems. Let them stay off for 1-20 seconds, and then plug 'em all back in and see what happens.
posted by lester at 1:50 PM on December 18, 2005

Response by poster: nkyad, I don't think that would be the cause of the static here, as some programs are playing it with static and others aren't. (I tried it though--didn't help)... I just burnt a CD in that drive and it gives the same results: winamp and Creative play it with static, iTunes and winDVD without.

lester, I tried the hard boot/unplug--it didn't change anything. Thanks for the suggestions though. (More are welcome!)

I'm wondering now if it might be some software problem--maybe iTunes and WinDVD use one codec that the others don't? And the other one got corrupted? ... I'm not sure, but I'm going to try uninstalling and reinstalling Winamp to see if that takes care of it.
posted by Tuwa at 3:00 PM on December 18, 2005

Best answer: Well, reinstalling Winamp didn't help. Reinstalling the soundcard took care of it.

Worst AskMe ever? In the bottom 100, surely.
posted by Tuwa at 3:22 PM on December 18, 2005

I wouldn't call it the worst askme. It's entirely possible that I might face the same problem someday, and I'll remember reseating the sound card.
posted by lester at 4:22 PM on December 18, 2005

Yeah, I have this exact problem and was thinking of ask.meing it, as well. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll have to try reinstalling the sound card.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:57 PM on December 18, 2005