Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

mwillems · 2026-08-25 20:22:49

topcat01 wrote:

Yes, I always use accuraterip. Note also my comment about different lasers, although I don't know how that might be relevant given the facts.

That was my own initial thought (i.e. that the CD laser was failing, but the DVD laser was fine), but my testing with other systems seemed to suggest that that wasn't the issue.

As an aside, I've been interacting with optical media and computer audio for about 35 years, and, while it is generally much better than it once was, it has always been an adventure :-)

Last edited by mwillems (2026-08-25 20:23:09)

topcat01 · 2026-08-25 20:25:49

I know what you mean. I have a large optical media collection, and I am extremely careful while handling my precious discs and my player/drives.

seth · 2026-08-25 20:33:08

Electrical, tech sheet of the board would tell but 6 ports are perfectly normal for a single controller (so a multiplier would be less likely)
You could test to detach the BD drive but I'd not hold my breath.

Do you get AERs (pci bus errors) when reading CDs?

@dsatta can play video CDs, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p2307817 - what would make things just weirder because I don't think the white book (like the red book) specified error corrections (unlike the yellow book describing data CDs)

mwillems · 2026-08-25 21:08:55

seth wrote:

Electrical, tech sheet of the board would tell but 6 ports are perfectly normal for a single controller (so a multiplier would be less likely)
You could test to detach the BD drive but I'd not hold my breath.
Do you get AERs (pci bus errors) when reading CDs?
@dsatta can play video CDs, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 7#p2307817 - what would make things just weirder because I don't think the white book (like the red book) specified error corrections (unlike the yellow book describing data CDs)

I do not see pci bus errors or AERs in the journal or in dmesg, but let me know if I should be looking somewhere else.

Ripping a single track as an example, cdparanoia shows mostly + signs for "Unreported loss of streaming/other error in read" and a handful of V's for "Uncorrected error/skip", but no clean reads.

Ripping the same disc/track with the BD drive in the same PC shows a completely clean rip and finishes in less than 1/10 of the time.

Last edited by mwillems (2026-08-25 21:09:36)

dimich · 2026-08-25 22:00:57

Unlikely but not impossible: some electromagnetic noise specific to the motherboard interferes with analog circuitry of the drive. This doesn't have to be a power supply.
What model is the drive? How old is it?

mwillems · 2026-08-25 22:32:39

The misbehaving drive in my case is an Asus DRW-24B1ST. You can still buy them new, but mine is about ten years old.

Last edited by mwillems (2026-08-25 22:33:34)

dimich · 2026-08-25 23:27:26

mwillems wrote:

The misbehaving drive in my case is an Asus DRW-24B1ST. You can still buy them new, but mine is about ten years old.

It's unlikely that there are still any electrolytic capacitors that could dry out. Although, contact of some filtering capacitor or other component in the photo sensor circuit could be broken.
Can you rip the same track twice into lossless wav format and check whether distortions are byte-to-byte the same?

mwillems · 2026-08-25 23:42:33

dimich wrote:

mwillems wrote:
The misbehaving drive in my case is an Asus DRW-24B1ST. You can still buy them new, but mine is about ten years old.
It's unlikely that there are still any electrolytic capacitors that could dry out. Although, contact of some filtering capacitor or other component in the photo sensor circuit could be broken.
Can you rip the same track twice into lossless wav format and check whether distortions are byte-to-byte the same?

They are not byte for byte the same, although they sound pretty similar. The tracks have different shasums, etc. Here's the CDParanoia readout for the same track ripped twice with the affected drive:

(== PROGRESS == [!+++++++!+!V!+!!+!+!!!V++++!+!| 003471 00 ] == :^D * ==)

(== PROGRESS == [!+!++++!!++!V+!++!+!!+!V!!++!+| 003471 00 ] == :^D * ==)

You can see that there are many failures that are in the same spots, but some that are also unique to each run.

Last edited by mwillems (2026-08-25 23:43:39)

dimich · 2026-08-26 00:17:29

mwillems wrote:

You can see that there are many failures that are in the same spots, but some that are also unique to each run.

Well, this supports the analog noise hypothesis: signal-to-noise ratio may be too low for successfull CIRC correction. But what kind of noise is it, electrical or optical, is still unclear.

Arch Linux

#51 2026-08-25 20:22:49

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#52 2026-08-25 20:25:49

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#53 2026-08-25 20:33:08

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#54 2026-08-25 21:08:55

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#55 2026-08-25 22:00:57

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#56 2026-08-25 22:32:39

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#57 2026-08-25 23:27:26

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#58 2026-08-25 23:42:33

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

#59 2026-08-26 00:17:29

Re: Problems when playing and ripping CDs. No problems with DVDs.

Board footer