Certain CDs skip - only on the last two tracks - even the 'perfect' CDs.?

Question

Details: I play music CDs (commercial, pressed CDs, not CD-Rs) on my PC, using Winamp. The soundcard is AC'97 (built in). OS is 98SE. RAM is i Gig.

In the last few months I've had three different CDs skip. And the problem always occurs on the last track or two.

Of the three CDs, only one of them is scratched. I’ve had this 1984 CD for five years. It now has a few short, but nasty scratches. It skips on track 24. I ripped it into Acid Pro just to see the sound wave pattern and yes, I do see unnatural peaks.

The second disc, a CD from 2004, doesn't even have scratches - and I just bought it a few months ago! It skips on the last track. I adjusted the Digital Audio Extraction and buffer on my media player and now it seems to be OK.

The third disc also has no marks at all. It’s a disc from 2001. It skips on the last two tracks. A total mystery!

Sub-questions: What is to blame? The CDs? My Sony CD-ROM drive? Or should I avoid listening to CDs while using the Net? Thanks.

Answer 1

Sometimes certain CDs skip in certain players no matter how good the CD is or the player is. There is probably nothing wrong with either if the CDs work elsewhere. If it really bothers you, you can upgrade the CD-ROM drive but I don't think its worth all the trouble. A better cheaper solution is just to rip the CDs to your computer, this should eliminate the skipping in the songs and then you will have the files. Occasionally, some CPU intesive media player applications will run out of memory or CPU power and cause little blips in the sound. This can be fixed by downloading a better sound driver like the ASIO for all driver. With the ASIO for all driver you can increase the buffer size very easily and remove any skipping that is caused by lack of CPU power available. With your case however, the problem is much more likely that some CDs just dont work in some players. Do some troubleshooting before you decide what to do. Good Luck!

Answer 2

i pass to respond to with the 1st element that popped to concepts: so as that's why i'm so 'burned' out those days? that's because of the fact of all of the report conversion. thank you for the heads up!!! won't be in a position to anticipate the burn while changing my CD concepts to a DVD concepts..... in simple terms 'image' it. :) that's a alluring day. large Q certainly :)

Answer 3

Problems reading and writing CDs are common. In many cases, the problem cn be solved by checking the PC with free software, hardware modifications and cleaning the CD drive. I found the information at http://fixit.in/cdrdrive.html useful.