iTunes clipping/skipping during playback

[tank03]

I replaced the IDE cable and defragged the hard-drive.

The drive is still relatively slow and in PIO mode.

One thing I noticed is that the CR/ROM drive has it's jumper (after I spent some time reading what a jumper was) set to CS (for Cable Select?) and the "E" drive is set to "Slave".  Should one of these be set to "Master"?  If so, which one?  Or is this really not an issue or the cause of my issues?

Once again, the advice is enormously appreciated.  As annoying as this has been for me, I've learned quite a bit about my computer, and I thank you guys for helping out.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

[BC_Programmer]

One thing I noticed is that the CR/ROM drive has it's jumper (after I spent some time reading what a jumper was) set to CS (for Cable Select?) and the "E" drive is set to "Slave".  Should one of these be set to "Master"?  If so, which one?  Or is this really not an issue or the cause of my issues?

Ahh, that's a interesting tidbit; now we have something else to try.


"Cable Select" is usually set on both drives to configure them to assign themselves to master/slave based on their positions on the cable. The end would become master, and the middle would be Slave.

Try setting the CD-ROM drive to Master via the jumper, and see if that makes any difference.

Once again, the advice is enormously appreciated.  As annoying as this has been for me, I've learned quite a bit about my computer, and I thank you guys for helping out.

you're quite welcome. Personally, I've done the most learning in times of peril. (HD crashes) or my famous, "hmm, I wonder if it will go faster if I turn the power cable around". a loud sizzling noise, the breaker being tripped, and a smokey smell later, I discovered that it didn't.

[tank03]

Well, I've set the jumper on the CD/ROM to master and ensured the hardrive was set to slave and there has been no change. 

Additionally, I've tried all the recommedations found at the WesternDigital support site (i.e. uninstall drivers and reboot, ensure running XP service pack 3) without success.

I'm at a loss as to what to do next.  Perhaps there is no solution to my problem and it's time to pack it in? 

If anyone has anything further to suggest I'd be interested, but I'm starting to think that this may be beyond my meager abilties to solve.

[tank03]

I think I may have solved the problem.

In the interest of exploring and learning about how my machine operates, I entered the BIOS mode (never done that before) at startup and found various settings for the drives.  I noticed that on drive channel 2 the master was set to "CD/ROM" and the slave was set to "Off".  Taking a chance I set it to "Auto" and returned to Normal mode.

When I checked the properties of the IDE secondary channel using the Device Manager I noticed the current tranfer mode for the "E" drive changed from "PIO" to "UDMA 5".

I haven't yet tried the iTunes, but my "E" drive is now significantly faster than it ever was before.  It's the performance I was expecting , but never got, when I first had it installed.

Everything seems OK to me, but does anyone thinnk my solution may prove to be a bad idea in the long run?  Is there a reason it was set-up as it was previously?  Admittedly, I'm just poking around in the dark as I have no idea what any of these things really do so if you think I'm causing more harm then good, please let me know.

In the meantime, I'm off to test my iTunes and see how that runs.  I'll report back my findings.

Again, many thanks to those who have offered advice.  It was greatly appreciated.

[BC_Programmer]

hooray! looks like  you fixed it


the reason it was set was probably simply because the folks that installed it for you were slacking off. I love their little spin-up excuse though, since hard drives spin up the moment they get power (power management options notwithstanding).


Good sleuthing in the BIOS to solve your issue, though.


Not sure what the setting would mean, but if I had to guess I'd say the BIOS was basically treating it as a CD-ROM drive; why it wouldn't use a UDMA mode for a CD-ROM drive I haven't a clue.


It's nice to see threads have a happy ending

[tank03]

I'm exceptionally happy to report that everything (including the iTunes) is working flawlessly.

Apparently, that channel needed to be "turned on" via BIOS. 

Thanks for all the help, I've learned quite alot this past week.

Cheers!

[Sophie.annelies]

Hi, I'm also having this problem. I checked for answers on the Apple help forum and the only suggestion was to wait for a newer version.

I am running the most recent version of iTunes on Windows 7 Ultimate 64x, on a computer with 2gig of RAM. I assume my sound driver is up to date as I just recently reinstalled my OS.
I don't get this issue with Windows Media Player or any other media player on my computer. It also happens when I plug in speakers so yeah definitely iTunes.

I can't remember when I started having this issue, but I think it's only recently or I would've noticed earlier and done something about it. Perhaps it's the latest version of iTunes?