playing dvds on a t40

[Johnnyv]

Hi,
Congratulations on the forum - fantastic resource.
I am trying to resolve a simple problem. When I play DVDs on my T40, the result is just about watchable but jerky. Same thing happens with short videos I have uploaded from a digital camera, so it seems not to be a problem with the DVD drive. I am running Vista.
I have also noticed when watching streamed video online that they show up ok in small screen mode but when I try to go to full screen I just get a scrambled, colourful moving/flashing pattern.
I'm thinking that either there's a setting I have wrong, or else T40s aren't that great at playing DVDs. In either case if anyone can enlighten me, I'd be grateful!

[sjthinkpader]

Add more RAM. Make sure the DVD drive is running in DMA mode not PIO. Look for this in the DVD player program settings. Also update the video driver to the latest version.

[Johnnyv]

Thanks
I have 1.25gb RAM, am already set to DMA and I have the radeon ati 9000 driver selected (for a radeon 7500 card). I just upgraded the RAM from 512 but it didn't make much difference to the playing of video.
Has anyone managed to get smooth video playback with this set-up?

[sjthinkpader]

Close as many of the SysTray processes and other background tasks as you can. Set CPU power profile to "Adaptive".

[basketb]

Do yourself a favor and install XP rather than Vista. The last time I used a T40 was nearly two years ago but I never had any problems watching any DVDs or other videos with 1GB of RAM and Win XP.

[rapasoft]

i don't think vista is what this notebook deserves... you'll get far more responsive system with XP or any linux distro.

[sktn77a]

+3. I tried vista on a 2GHz T41 with 1.5Gb RAM for a couple of months but it was painfully slow compared to XP. And if XP doesn't cure your problems, you can always go back to vista.

[Specter]

And if you haven't already, update your sound (audio) drivers! Old - or incorrect - audio drivers have been known to produce poor video playback.