need help with dvd player on laptop

12 years ago

Whenever I'd watch a movie my player began skipping/hanging (like repeating things at first 3 times then got so bad that it'd be 5 or 6), and the video would get real slow, stop then speed up to catch up. I was told by one repair place that I needed to replace the dvd drive ($100). I found out the place where my FIL goes would be half of that so I took it, he swapped it out and tested by playing a dvd for 2-3 minutes and it was fine. So last night was the first time we tried playing something and it's back to the repeating and skipping! When I called the guy he said that I probably have a virus causing this and it's $40 for him to scan it. Is a virus something that I can remove myself? I have Time Warner CA security (which I've been told is not really that good) but wouldn't it catch something like that? He also said that I have a lot of programs running in the background (in the lower right corner next to the time) that could be slowing it down because they're ready and waiting for me to access them--is that possibly a cause and if so how do I get them out? I don't know anything about this - can anyone here please help? Thanks.

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Comments (5)

bob414
12 years ago
As a first step you might run trendmicro house call to see if you have a virus. If you do you may need to go to a malware removal forum that someone here will point you to. You might also want to download, update and run malwarebytes. Let it remove anything it finds. Report the results here.
genes
12 years ago
You might also want to mention the brand name and model number of the laptop and what operating system you are using as well as any particular program like Quicktime, RealPlayer, WindowsMediaPlayer that you are using to view the movie..Has the laptop been modified with more memory since you have purchased it?? What about online videos like Youtube...same results, skipping etc
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beanwabr
Original Author
12 years ago
genes,

It's an Acer Aspire 5515 with Windows XP; using WinDVD to play dvd's. No added memory since purchased (Dec 2009).

YouTube is kind of bad; what's worse though is for example going to NBC.com to watch Parenthood; or ABC.com to see, say, No Ordinary Family .... these skip and hang up also.

Thanks!
owbist
12 years ago
Online videos hanging could well be to do with your connection to your provider. When watching a video that starts to hang just click the pause button for a few seconds to allow the buffer to build. You should see the cache continue to build then click to play again.

While it does not correct the DVD problem you might consider an external DVD player/burner. Some listed below to give you a price spread.

Did you try anything that Bob suggested above?

Is the Time Warner program a full anti virus and anti malware combination or purely anti virus?

Here is a link that might be useful: Sampling of external DVD player/burner
genes
12 years ago
In reviews I have read circ 2009, they mention it has a single core processor and a very basic GPU (graphic Processor unit) video chip...The video chip was rated at something like 712 of 725 (725 being the worst)..so not a good chip...they also mentioned quite a few having problems with Vista as it was such a memory hog and switched to XP and claimed their machines ran "twice as fast" as before..Wondering if Win 7 may be a better alternative if its possible...another thing...is the laptop kept relatively clean ie temp files/cache delete often, defrags on occasion and also regular malware scans...let us know