Hiccups in performance of PC's CD player

are they CD-Rs? if so, maybe it's the CD-R brand.

Nope, all factory CDs (but not Factory CDs).

My Chinese Stars CD wrecked my last drive.

Do CDs skip in other applications like iTunes for Windows or Winamp?

I've had similar problems on my PC, and they've never quite gone away for good. I'm sort of at a loss too, though you might try running Windows Update to make sure you've got the most recent drivers, etc. if switching applications doesn't work.

i used to have the same problem with winxp and dvd playback. wound up it was my parallel port zip drive.

HI MTBT5K!!!!!

yes, i tried sony jukebox and it's a little better... but i definitely like the WMP interface more.

you should totally give your chinese stars cd to me. that will cure all your problems, no doubt.

Out on a limb here..but if you are running other stuff, could it be a RAM issue? Or did this just develop recently

Could it be a copy protection issue? I believe some manufacturers are now deliberately putting playback errors onto CDs so they can't be played back on a PC without these dropouts, pops and clicks, etc - see www.copyprotectionsucks.co.uk

Without knowing any more details, I'm going to have to side with nothingleft.. Sounds like a problem with memory. If you can run a task manager or performance monitor while you play the CD, it might indicate whether or not this is the case.

nothingleft:
512mb ram

Mog:
possibly, although i doubt the labels manufacturing the CDs i'm playing are the culprits.

maybe you could check the pin settings on the back of the cd rom? maybe you have it set to slave or something when the old cd rom was set to master. maybe that's it?

Nope, brand new PC, only one drive.

are you trying to run things in the background? 512mb might not be enough- of course it depends on the set up.. I got this ghetto Dell which only has 256mb and I cant copy files off of a CD onto my harddrive while I am listening to mp3s off my computer.. it just stutters through the whole thing..until the copying is done.

But if all you are trying to do is listen to a CD off your drive and doing nothing else memory intensive..then it probably isnt a memory issue

well, if your pc came to your from the factory, then it should be fine. but if you replaced the cd drive, then you might want to check the pin settings.

gygax!!

Do mp3s distort? If so, then maybe it's a speaker or sound card issue. If not...

It sounds like your problem is very similar to mine. I've read about this sort of problem before, and basically it's an issue of too much "noise" on the cables that transfer the audio from the cd player to the sound card. The noise is typically caused by other hardware (like a second drive, or hard drive on the same IDE cable). There's not a quick solution, unfortunately. I think it basically involves trial and error fiddling around with hardware configurations, and I haven't had the time/motivation to look into it on my computer. If it's a new Dell under warranty, it might be worth calling customer support about.