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#1
Very disappointed with Win7 Core i7 DVD playback.
I have a Thinkpad W510. 8 GB RAM, running Win7 Pro 64-bit. My previous laptop was a Thinkpad T61 with 32-bit XP and 3 GB RAM. DVD playback on that machine was flawless, I could set up a DVD for the kids and never have to worry about it. There were no lags, no hiccups, no pauses.
Playback on my Win7 laptop reminds me of the early days of Win95. I remember way back when having to ensure the controllers were set to DMA mode instead of PIO in order to get as smooth playback as I could. With my less-than-year old W510, I am back to those same old problems. Playback will start up fine after a very long lag, but eventually will start stuttering. The kids complain constantly of it pausing. I have tried many different DVDs, and it is hit and miss. Some will play to conclusion relatively well, but others (even brand new DVDs) will start pausing halfway through. I can't even find "PIO mode" listed in Device Manager any longer, in fact IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers where I used to find it in XP has exactly one listing on my Win7 (Ricoh Memory Stick controller).
What can I do to improve playback? I always make sure the minimal possible is running (no virus checking, etc.), and I always plug in the power cable so that the kids don't have to watch on battery power alone. That brings me to the second complaint, my old T61 used to be fine for about 3 hours of battery DVD watching with no pauses, my new W510, forget about it. I don't even bother any longer trying to watch a DVD on battery power alone, it is a lost cause. It is much better with the power cord plugged in, but far from perfect. It seems that this laptop is a big step backwards at least in terms of multimedia when compared to its much older predecessor. I have to say, I like the Win7 interface and stability improvements, but as for performance, I am very underwhelmed. Any ideas?
Specs :
Win7 64-bit
8 GB RAM
Lenovo Thinkpad W510
Core i7 at 2.0 GHz
Stability is very good, the laptop almost never crashes. Boot time is OK considering I don't have an SSD. I have run virus checkers, malware progs, etc., all negative. I have removed as much as I can from the Startup list in msconfig, but some things are imposed on me by my corporate standards. Those same things were imposed on my XP laptop, and did not prevent DVD playback from working well.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
DD.