jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

sarah31 · 2002-09-04 08:34:47

Hi!

My dvd is performing poorly it is very jerky (ie drops alot of frames). I can use hdparm to turn dma on and it stick for a bit but hen it gets dropped. DMA being on seems to make a difference.

I remember when i was testing the pos gentoo i had the same troubles and modprobing in ide-cd or something like that solved it though the option does not appear to be available here.

any help is most welcome.

ody · 2002-09-04 08:47:39

was it ide-scsi you used?

mike · 2002-09-04 09:20:12

Hmm, I have no problems watching DVD's. I simply installed MPlayer with Pacman and it works very nicely. What System do you have?

sarah31 · 2002-09-04 13:39:10

i started out having no troubles but of course mplayer just did not want to work. It would play avis and such but it will not play dvds (never ever ever got this to work with mplayer). I have xine loaded and it play super once i had it set up for dvds but now it has gone all jerky and mplayer won't even get its lazy ass off the ground to play anything so that pos is gone.

yes i do have the scsi-ide module loaded but I personally have never had it muck up anything else I have run two linux distros successfully with both the ide scsi and regular ide modules active and operational. Since the ide-cdrom module could not be modprobed or insmoded i assumed it was not there or not set in the kernel (sorry but i don't even know which file/directory to check in Arch to see which modules are set ands which are not).

Diabling the scsi emulation module is not an option that would create to much of a pain in the ass when i wan t to use my cdrw. (yes i have two drives cdrw and cdrom/dvd) Added to that i know both can operate side by side without either effecting the performance of the other, so why have two gimped decvices )or one gimped and one not)?

sarah31 · 2002-09-05 02:26:44

from dmesg, the only clue anywhere (i don't know what it means other than DMA is definitely getting dropped):

hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x40
hdc: DMA disabled
hdc: ATAPI reset complete
hdc: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x40
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x40
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x40
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: cdrom_decode_status: error=0x40
hdc: DMA disabled
hdc: ATAPI reset complete
hdc: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
hdc: drive_cmd: error=0x04

Does this mean my drive is forked?

ody · 2002-09-05 11:39:06

I get this allot.. its mainly due to dirty discs, or dirty lens.. Id clean the disc your using first and try again, if that dosnt work try a head cleaner for the actual drives themselves..

sarah31 · 2002-09-05 12:14:02

I don't think it is quite that simple. The DMA can stay set until i actually I try and use the DVD. I did a great deal of study on this and it seems to be a kernel issue that has been present for a very long time and as far as i have been told hdparm is the solution but it is not i will likely have to try and figure out the kernel recompile process and recompile.

(The DMA is commonly dropped right when i press the dvdnav button on xine)

sarah31 · 2002-09-05 17:32:23

BTW i did try the cleaning and anew dvd no change. The dma gets shut off as soon as anything is done with it. I know it is capable of DMA and i sure as heck prefer not to force dma with hdparm or tweaking the proc settings. I have been reading up on this problem and I believe it is related to devfs. I seems devfs has issues with having one drive as ide and one as scsi. I read a whole mess of solutions all suck because they require a kernel recompile at minimum (to set ide-cd to module and perhaps some more scsi stuff).

Does anyone have a burner as slave and regular dvd/cdrom drive as master and not have any troubles with either? I have not tested my burner yet but according to the junk i have been reading i may have issues with that as well.

Arielext · 2002-09-05 18:32:13

I have set both to ide-scsi, no problems at all here

ody · 2002-09-05 18:59:30

If its just yoiur dvd player playing(no pun intended) up then Im gonna have to say it again.. its more than likely a dirty lens or the drive is packing in...

sarah31 · 2002-09-05 20:10:34

well it should not be packing it in unless it is a lemon. The drive is maybe3 months old and has seen limited use as both a DVD and CDROM. I did not have any issues ever with it in my previous distro but I had similar problems in Gentoo (which were releived by modprobing in the ide-cd module). Like i say this is a documented issue with devfs and the kernel so i guess i will try the drive as a scsi-emulated one then to see if the resolves anything.

Ody so you know the DMA gets dropped on regular cds as well. Any attempt to mount any media will immediately kill the dma. The thing is with the other vidoe files I have have the lack of dma does not seem to pose an issue.

Anyway i will play with it some more and find the lilo syntax for making this drive scsi as well and see what that does. I would like to exhaust my tinkering options until i determine that it my be hardware related. It is stupid of me i know but i believe that a 3 or 4 months old low use device should not be packing it in

sarah31 · 2002-09-12 07:13:19

Solved! I tried a HDPARM setting suggest on the ogle site and that worked. The issue had to do with my VIA chipset. So if you have jerky play and DMA dropping with a VIA chipset use:

hdparm -d 1 -X34 /dev/hdx

and you should be happy as a clam

Arch Linux

#1 2002-09-04 08:34:47

jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#2 2002-09-04 08:47:39

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#3 2002-09-04 09:20:12

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#4 2002-09-04 13:39:10

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#5 2002-09-05 02:26:44

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#6 2002-09-05 11:39:06

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#7 2002-09-05 12:14:02

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#8 2002-09-05 17:32:23

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#9 2002-09-05 18:32:13

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#10 2002-09-05 18:59:30

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#11 2002-09-05 20:10:34

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

#12 2002-09-12 07:13:19

Re: jerky DVD play and DMA dropping

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