Thinkpads Forum

I have a 600e 2645bu. I recently purchased a cd/dvd burner for it, mainly to play dvd's. Well the video is real jerky. So it only had 128k of memory, I updated it with another 128 hence it shows 294336KB.
But its performance is still the same.

HELP What can I do, Or is this the way it is???

Any help will be gratefully appreciated
Thanks
Arnie

OS?

What program are you using to watch DVDs?

294MB of RAM is at the minimum end of what's required to watch DVDs on a 600E. 512MB of added RAM (2 X 256MB) would be much better.

Conversely, you could search eBay for a Margi DVD-to-Go card. These cards take advantage of the Zoomed Video enabled PC card slots in the 600 (and other) series machines and play DVDs faultlessly.

James

Here is what I do to watch DVDs on the 600E. First make sure the color settings are set to 16 bit, NOT 24 bit. You can change that by right clicking on the Windows desktop and selecting properties and clicking on the settings tab to change the color settings. Next, download Media Player Classic. This is a free program that I have found plays DVDs better than any other software on Pentium II machines. Pop a DVD into the drive, open Media Player Classic and select open DVD from the file menu. DVD playback is best if the computer is using Windows XP. Windows 2000 can play it, but you may need to lower the screen resolution to reduce choppy playback.

JHEM wrote:OS?

What program are you using to watch DVDs?

294MB of RAM is at the minimum end of what's required to watch DVDs on a 600E. 512MB of added RAM (2 X 256MB) would be much better.

Conversely, you could search eBay for a Margi DVD-to-Go card. These cards take advantage of the Zoomed Video enabled PC card slots in the 600 (and other) series machines and play DVDs faultlessly.

James

I thought that my 600e would not recognize any memory higher than what I had?? What type of memory should I use so it will see it??
For a player I have used Realplayer,Windows Media Player Power DVD. They all performed the same way, jerky.

Stargate199 wrote:Here is what I do to watch DVDs on the 600E. First make sure the color settings are set to 16 bit, NOT 24 bit. You can change that by right clicking on the Windows desktop and selecting properties and clicking on the settings tab to change the color settings. Next, download Media Player Classic. This is a free program that I have found plays DVDs better than any other software on Pentium II machines. Pop a DVD into the drive, open Media Player Classic and select open DVD from the file menu. DVD playback is best if the computer is using Windows XP. Windows 2000 can play it, but you may need to lower the screen resolution to reduce choppy playback.

I downloaded Media Player Classic Version 6.4.9.0
The video looked pretty good, but now the audio is out of sync.
The player seemed like a pretty neet little program. Its a keeper!
So I don't now what I should do now ?? Use it for a book end or a door stop??
Thanks
Arnie

JHEM wrote:OS?

What program are you using to watch DVDs?

294MB of RAM is at the minimum end of what's required to watch DVDs on a 600E.

Jim, I disagree with this. I have three 600Es. I have watched DVDs on these with as little as 160M of RAM. 16-bit color and a supported drive are the key factors.

You need to make sure your player is supported by the hardware, but mediametric's DVD Express and Windows Media Player work fine.

If Arnie has not changed to 16-bit color, that's the first step. After that, I'd look at the requirements for the player software and post the exact PN for the drive here.

I play DVDs on a 600 with 160M of RAM and a Margi card as well. A Margi card may be an inexpensive enhancement, but I don't think Arnie needs one.

The published maximum memory specs for the 600E in the twbook are obsolete. You can install 256MB PC100 low-density (16-chip) modules in your E, for a total of 544MB. I currently have three of these systems with that much memory in each.

edit: As far as which modules work, I have had great luck in getting Micron MT16LSDF3264HG cheap on eBay. You can use PC100 or PC133 as long as they are 16-chip versions. Also, CL3 (CAS latency 3) is what's required; CL2 will also work (as it's faster).

lenmullen wrote:I play DVDs on a 600 with 160M of RAM and a Margi card as well. A Margi card may be an inexpensive enhancement, but I don't think Arnie needs one.

I always had problems playing DVDs on my 600Es back in the day Len, I usually "cured" the problems with either a memory upgrade or a Margi card, which were being dumped at fire sale prices on eBay not long ago.

I had forgotten about the necessity for rolling the display back to 16BIT! Thanks for the reminder Stargate.

James

rkawakami wrote:The published maximum memory specs for the 600E in the twbook are obsolete. You can install 256MB PC100 low-density (16-chip) modules in your E, for a total of 544MB. I currently have three of these systems with that much memory in each.

edit: As far as which modules work, I have had great luck in getting Micron MT16LSDF3264HG cheap on eBay. You can use PC100 or PC133 as long as they are 16-chip versions. Also, CL3 (CAS latency 3) is what's required; CL2 will also work (as it's faster).

So are you saying if I increase my memory, that should take care of my problem???
Sorry to be such a pain!

lenmullen wrote:

JHEM wrote:OS?

What program are you using to watch DVDs?

294MB of RAM is at the minimum end of what's required to watch DVDs on a 600E.

Jim, I disagree with this. I have three 600Es. I have watched DVDs on these with as little as 160M of RAM. 16-bit color and a supported drive are the key factors.

You need to make sure your player is supported by the hardware, but mediametric's DVD Express and Windows Media Player work fine.

If Arnie has not changed to 16-bit color, that's the first step. After that, I'd look at the requirements for the player software and post the exact PN for the drive here.

I play DVDs on a 600 with 160M of RAM and a Margi card as well. A Margi card may be an inexpensive enhancement, but I don't think Arnie needs one.

I'm running 16 bit color. The dvd burner I purchased off of EBAY. I looked for the model number but could not find it. It was supposed to work with my laptop ???? so they said

Arnie, I posted my experience with DVD drives here...

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... ht=#196892

I paid between $10 and $24 for each of the drives I purchased.

Unless you have CD caddies on hand and want to do a transplant, I'd stick with these...

05K9106 (SD-C2102 @ 2x) worked fine without modification
27L3873 (SD-C2302 @ 6x) worked fine without modification

Search eBay for (05K9106, SD-C2102, 27L3873, SD-C2302)

Also be sure to turn off your anti-virus and any other applications that may be running before playing your dvd. They use up cpu and memory vital to your dvd player.

arnie wrote: I downloaded Media Player Classic Version 6.4.9.0
The video looked pretty good, but now the audio is out of sync.
The player seemed like a pretty neet little program. Its a keeper!
So I don't now what I should do now ?? Use it for a book end or a door stop??
Thanks
Arnie

I have the same problem with Media Player Classic - the audio is out of sync for DVDs. Mediamatics DVDExpress plays any DVD I put in flawlessly.

I've played DVDs with different DVD player software, and the Mediamatics DVDExpress player has never had a single problem.

In case anyone is looking for a good price on a Margi Card, I just bought one here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-DVD-MPEG-2-PCM ... dZViewItem

He has 9 left as of this message.

Arnie, you posted an incomplete model number. I was going to look up which CPU you have. The 600E came with 300, 300 PE (whatever that is), 366 or 400MHz, and 300MHz is just barely fast enough to play a DVD in software. If your model ends with "BU", it should have the 400MHz CPU and you should be fine. The Margi-to-go card is a hardware video accelerator that will do the job too.

So you should be OK if you get enough RAM. Some PC133 modules will not work in some 600E's so be careful and try to get a return option in case they don't work in yours. You should have enough RAM if you close everything else, but of course, more will not hurt.

Try changing the drive performance mode to High. That's added by (I think) the ThinkPad Configuration Utility.

There's also a possibility that something else is running and using your CPU. Run a good virus and malware scanner. Run Task Manager and see what's using your CPU and memory.

Wingnut wrote:In case anyone is looking for a good price on a Margi Card, I just bought one here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-DVD-MPEG-2-PCM ... dZViewItem

He has 9 left as of this message.

Wingnut, let us know how the Margi card works out for you. You might want to check to see if it accelerates video files on your hard drive, too!

Wingnut wrote:In case anyone is looking for a good price on a Margi Card, I just bought one here[...]

Thanks for the heads up. I just ordered two that I'll be trying out in various configurations on my set of 600/770 machines. I don't have a 600E, so I won't be testing with that one. I'm expecting it to be of use with my 770E, and am also interested in trying out some experiments with it in my 770Z and 600X.

Phil.

lenmullen wrote:I play DVDs on a 600 with 160M of RAM and a Margi card as well. A Margi card may be an inexpensive enhancement, but I don't think Arnie needs one.

If he can find one at a good deal, why not? Never hurts to have a little margin.

Anyhow, I've played a number of DVDs on my 600 with 288MB without a Margi card. One thing I've noticed is that there's a very noticeable difference in performance between having DMA enabled for the optical drive vs. having it disabled. (You definitely want it enabled).

Every little bit helps.

Hi

My 600x has no problem playing dvd's, in fact it really is a super laptop. The only problem that l have is myself.

Alan

You can play with the audio synchronisation in Media Player Classic (MPC) by right clicking on the screen whilst its playing, go to 'Audio' and use the adjustment box till it looks about right!

I have found MPC, esp. when run with 'FFDshow' codecs, capable of playing just about any files no worries!

I'm a bit surprised at the statement that 294MB is considered the low end of what's required to play DVD's on the 600e. I've been playing DVD's for over three years on my 600e with 128MB RAM. Of course, there's a tradeoff in that audio and subtitling generally don't work well together at that amount of RAM, but since I generally have the sound turned off (I'm hard of hearing/hearing-impaired so have no great need for high-fidelity sound in any case, and therefore need subtitling/captioning a lot more) it doesn't pose any real difficulties for me.

-Joe-