CD access causes static

[volrath]

Whenever there is lots of access to my toshiba SD-R5112 DVD-RW (reading or writing), the sound out from my philips PSC703 sound card gets riddled in static and gets kinda echo-ey. I tried removing the card and using my msi (something pro-2?) motherboard's built-in AC97 sound, but the problem remains. This problem also happened when I had a CD-RW instead of my DVD-RW. For example, this happens when I play a DVD, rip an audio cd to mp3, copy files from a cd/dvd, or burn a cd/dvd.

Windows says that DMA is off for the DVD drive. I can't figure out a way to enable it, but I don't know if CD drives use DMA. I fiddled with '32 bit' and other such options in the BIOS but that did nothing. Updated soundcard drivers, no help. I am thinking maybe IDE controller problems or I just have things wired wrong...?

Any suggestions as to what could be wrong would be great!

 

[Boonesmi]

not sure this will fix it, but ive had similar problems with static coming though the "line in" or "mic" (on some asus boards i used about a year ago)

to fix it i just had to open the volume control (ie. right click on the volume icon in the task bar and select "open volume control") then make sure its set where you can view all the different lines. then click the "mute" button to mute all the stuff you dont use, ie. aux, line in, phone, mono out, etc, etc

 

[volrath]

Everything is already muted. This is only a problem when there is CD access. Line in noise would be all the time, wouldn't it?

 

[Matthias99]

In particular, you need to 'mute' the "CD Audio" source. I used to get this on my old CD drive while ripping CDs, and muting that fixed it. Of course, you'll have to unmute it if you're ever playing Redbook audio directly from a CD.

Edit: Hmm... do you get noise when *everything* is muted? If so, you're somehow getting electrical noise in your speakers from the CD drive. Probably a grounding issue, then, but I'm not sure how to fix it.

 

[Zepper]

Yeah, muting unused inputs is a very good idea. Also if you are using Digital Audio for your CD playing, you might disconnect the analog audio cable from your CD player. Just choose which you want to use, one or the other and disable/disconnect the other.
.bh.

 

[volrath]

Everything is muted except wave balance and system volume (sw synth, wavetable, s/pdif, line in, aux, cd audio, microphone). The digital audio cable is not connected to the drive. Power and data cables are connected to it. It is connected to its own ide channel with no other devices on it. The other ide channel has 2 hard drives on it. There is no floppy.

Could the data cable be causing problems? Like if I used the wrong one?

 

[Zepper]

Perhaps I wasn't clear. The CD Audio signal can get to the sound card several ways. One is thru the analog audio cable. That plugs into the 4-pin connector on the drive and goes direct to the sound card. Another is thru the data bus - called Digital Audio. And the third is via the 2 wire SPDIF connection. Only one path should be active at any given time. I hope that clarifies.
.bh.

 

[volrath]

I guess I was wrong in my terminoligy. The 'analog' cable is not connected. There are no SPDIF connections. So, only Digital Audio is being used.

 

[Zepper]

And if nothing else helps, check to see if the case of your drive is isolated from the metal of your PC case (say by plastic rails or some such), you could run a jumper wire to connect the metal to drain off the static developed by the spinning disk. Long shot, but...
.bh.

 

[volrath]

Yep, directly connected metal on metal.

 

[foofoo]

Windows says that DMA is off for the DVD drive

thiis is most likely the problem since the sound processing is using your main cpu and if you are in pio mode for the dvd, it will be using the cpu heavily. you really need to enable dma for the cd and dvd. in control panels => hardware => device manager => ide ata/atapi controllers => primary ide channel => advanced settings.
you should be able to enable dma from there. be sure to do the same for the secondary ide channel as well.
good luck

 

[volrath]

Finally the solution! I'm surprised nobody suggested this earlier. The controller had been set to PIO only for the CD drive because I was having problems with my CD-RW (which was defective anyways). Thanks foofoo!