Weird laptop audio sync problem

[Webby]

Hi all, I hope someone can help me with the most strange problem. I bought a Sony GRX516SP laptop (i think it may be 670 in US). If i tried to play a DivX from a CD and then advanced the time slider in *any* media player (i tried about 20!) then the video and audio becomes totally out of sync. Its not the file, becuase it plays great on my desktops and about 5 other desktops I've tried. When i contacted my retailer about the problem (Sony tech support are rubbish) they said it was faulty and refunded me. So i then went and bought a Toshiba 5200-801 (the one with a DVD burner..something like 5205 in US). Thing is I'm able to re-create the same problem on this machine! It happens with any video file, DivX, Xvid MPEG2 its so weird! I've now been able to re-create this problem on various Sony machines and various Toshiba machines. I've just ordered a Compaq n800w as a replacement so i hope things turn out better with this machine. Has anyone heard of this problem before? It seems that about half of all laptops i try have this problem. I think its the CD drives because the files will play fine off the hard drives. Anyone got any thoughts?

Thanks.
P.S. I mainly use BSPlayer, but i can recreate this problem with any media player....and i've tried about 20!

[Enchanter]

I think its the CD drives because the files will play fine off the hard drives

I do think so as well. The reason being these drives are not fast enough to read off the data on the CD for smooth playback. Check that you have DMA enabled for the CD drive. It may just help.

[Webby]

DMA has been enabled in all the machines i've tested. Have you seen this problem too? The drives have all been 24x which i thought would be plenty fast enough considering an old 8x drive will work fine on my desktop. Perhaps laptop drives can't move the head around quite as quick as a desktop machine causing this problem......Do you reckon an external USB2 drive would have this same problem? If not then i'll just get one and be done with it saving the hassle. Or I could get an external case for a 3.5" desktop drive with USB2 and use that. What do u reckon?

[Enchanter]

Can't say for sure since I've only owned one laptop so far, and while it's CPU is perfectly adequate and capable, its HD and CD-ROM read speed are not good enough, thus making the laptop not a good choice for viewing video. I suppose getting a faster drive will help in this case, though you need to make sure that the drive is connected to a fast interface (ie. UDMA Mode 2) so as to eliminate bottlenecking.