dvd trouble

[sacrelicious]

Hi, new here.

so anyway, I figure you guys might be able to help solve a (probably pretty easy) problem I'm having. recently my hard drive kicked the bucket (but that's not the problem I here to talk about), so a friend of mine, knowing that I am dead broke, and having an extra computer lying around in his too-small-to-have-un-used-computers-lying-around apartment, gave me his old computer. so after I took the best components from each computer, I wound up with a system that would put all others to shame (assuming advancements in consumer grade computer technology stopped in 1999, the year both of these computers were originally purchased)

anyway, here's the specs of my new, high-powered (that's sarcasm btw) frankenPC before we get to the meat of the problem: 650 athlon, 224 megs of ram (his 128 plus my 96), Diamond Viper 770 agp video card (I believe thats the TNT2 chip) with 32 megs of video ram, soundblaster live, 20 gig hard drive, dvd rom drive (toshiba model sd-m1302), and hp cd burner.

the problem: the dvd rom drive (this woulkd be my very first dvd rom drive ever) won't play dvd movies. oh, it'll try, and I'll get maybe a couple of frames in before I give up on trying to watch it. the video runs really slow, like I'm trying to watch streaming video using a 33k modem. the sound moves at more or less a normal pace, but does jump a little. since the dvd drive and the video card are both from my friends computer, and since I know I've watched dvd movies on it in the past, and since I'm running a faster processer than his, and more ram than either two systems, I should be able to make this work.

I have tried using the following dvd programs in an attempt to get this to work: XingDVD, PCFriendly, and Interactual. I have a hunch, though, that a super-lean dvd program would solve my problem (as super lean programs tend to do), but I have as yet been unable to find such a program as a free download.

so anyone have any ideas (short of getting a DVD decoder card, that is)?

 

[Inaris]

You can get a DVD decoder for pennies now, so why not?
I tend to use ATI card for the built in ability cause hardware is always better than software...

If you really want to get it to work, install a Linux Distro and paly it there. You will not have the resource issues you see in windows cause of a slower system.
Best of Luck...

 

[ekÆsine]

all those dvd players you mentioned are super lean. i think your problem is because you do not have proper drivers installed for Diamond Viper 770 agp video card.

what operating system is this you are using? that card is very old, you may not find drivers for the newer operating systems and even the generic drivers may not work. search the manufacturer website for drivers to download

 

[Apokalipse]

if it's 2000 or XP you should be able to go to Windows Update and find drivers (that's if you have the internet on it)

 

[sacrelicious]

what operating system is this you are using? that card is very old, you may not find drivers for the newer operating systems and even the generic drivers may not work. search the manufacturer website for drivers to download

sorry, I forgot to mention my OS. it's wndows 98, 2nd ed. now that you mention it, I did have trouble finding drivers that said they were specificaly for this card, but I have been extensivly testing it out on Serious Sam the past couple of days, and it works beautifully, so I would think that the drivers are good. I'm not sure what I got (being that I got it from a site unaffiliated with Diamond, may they rest in peace), but I know it works for the 3d. if, however, this card has built in dvd decoding as well, then I would probably need to basically look for the whole software package the thing would have come with originally, right?

that last scenario I don't think is the case though, since I sold computer hardware when this card was released, and I don't recall onboard dvd decoding as one of it's features. I could be wrong though.

to Inaris: I should probably look into getting a decoder card, but I still have some very good reasons to see if I can get it to work via software-

a) I have actualy watched dvd movies on my friends computer when he stil had it, and since everything related to dvd functionality from a hardware standpoint is the same--with the exception of the processor speed and the memory, which are respectivly faster and better--if it isn't working now then I want to know why. it suggests that I am doing something wrong, and I'd just like to know what. I'm sure you guys can all relate to the riddle-solving aspect of computer repair. it just eats at ya until you got it solved.

b) I won't be going anywhere tomorrow on account of snow (and not even the fun stuff that snowballs and snowmen can be made of, no, I'm talking about a layer of that harsh sandy stuff, covered by a crunchy shell of sleet), so why not try and get this to work?

c) I'm really, really, seriously, super broke right now, so unless I can literally pick a decoder card up for pennies I've got more important things to spend my money on than getting my computer to do something that I already have another electronic device to do.

and I won't be going linux anytime soon here either. all of my favorite software is on windows. if I run into another discarded computer that I can frankenberry up with the leftover parts from this mix-and-match, then I will toss a coin. if heads, then it will be a linux machine, and I will have fun learning linux. if tails, I will stick counterstrike on there and network it with my other computer.

 

[Inaris]

I sent you a PM with some info for you...

Let me know...