I'm running Debian with a 2.6.8 kernel on an i686 and have problems playing (and ripping) audio CDs. I don't know if this is a problem with hardware, software, or what... hence my placing it in the General forum.

I have 2 CD drives: one is a DVD-ROM drive (HL-DT-ST, GDR8163B) and the other is a SONY CD-RW (CRX216E) drive.

I don't have SCSI-emulation enabled, because supposedly I'm not supposed to need it with my kernel. DVDs play flawlessly though mplayer (haven't tried other players) and rip fine with vobcopy (if this can technically be called ripping, I'm not sure...). I can burn CD-Rs fine too (though there is some weird problem where burns at ~22X for the first 40 min, and suddenly slows to 8X after that until the end - any ideas here while I'm at it? ;-) ).

When I try to play CDs using DAE in xmms, it usually starts out with a burst of noise, then some silence. Then it starts to play a few seconds into the track. Sometimes. Sometimes I just get a lot of noise! The CD-RW tends to play "better" than the DVD drive in this respect.

Using xcdroast and ripping though there, from the DVD drive I just get blasts of noise separated by a few seconds of silence. (Haven't tried ripping from the CD-RW drive in xcdroast yet).

Using grip I get the same results ripping from the DVD drive, but I can rip from the CD-RW with success. But it only rips at about 2-4X. And it gives the :-\ face most of the time, with an occasional 8-| face.

cdparanoia produces similar results. Switching between the :-) and the :-P face, with an occasional :-\ face. The progress bar is also made entirely of the '+' sign, with an occasional '!'. It does get the audio out of the CD-RW drive, though.

With the DVD drive in cdparanoia I get '+' and the :-P face all the way across. The output file is silence.

With the DAE sometimes I wonder if the drive is running too fast. But that shouldn't explain why I also get bad results ripping. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!