I've never noticed before, but I think I may be having some problems ripping music CDs. First let me make it clear I purchase my CDs, and have no intention of distributing the music for free online. It's simply so that I don't have to keep changing CDs. Anyways, so I got a new CD the other day and I ripped it, but noticed that there were some flaws. Minor, but for example on one song it sounded like it skipped a tiny, tiny bit. I re-ripped the song and it was gone. So I know that it was a flaw. And on another song it kind of broke apart (like a gap) for a second. I don't think that it's the software? I use the Free CD Ripper. From Download.com, it's the most popular one I think. And I don't know if it'd be my CD/RW drive? Hmmm.. any ideas? I don't know if this has ever happened before .. maybe I've just never noticed. Oh I should have mentioned the CD/RW drive is a Samsung .. uh .. the model number I'm not sure. But it's a CD-RW/DVD combo drive. It's supposed to be pretty decent.

Try one of those cd-cleaners with the little brushes, it might help. Also, try different ripping software and lower the speed of ripping, that also might improve the quality of the end product ;) It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice...

Thanks for the reply! Well, it was a brand new CD. Heh. (shrugs) Maybe there is dust in the CD/RW drive? Should I try some compressed air? >:)

I just tried burning a CD, and sometimes I'll get that buffer underrun error that says it was avoided 1 or 2 times. This time it said like 52 times .. is that bad?

Try CDex. It's agreat ripping tool and it's free. If you still have problems wit hskips, then I suggest using Exact Audio Copy. It uses a different method for ripping. It is a little slower then most rippers but I guarantee you won't get any skips using this program. It is specificly made for problem CD's.

Thanks for the reply! No, there is something defeintely wrong with my CD-RW/DVD combo drive I think. When I was ripping last night, there were some flaws, the songs had a few errors in them that aren't normally there. Then I burned a CD last night, and it worked. Now, today, I tried burning a CD again, and this time it gives me all of those buffer underruns errors. Or rather, it said it avoided them like 52 or 56 times. I think it's the CD drive. What do you guys think? My system is fast enough, I've never had a problem before. I think I'll pick up a new one and see what happens. (shrugs)

Go to newegg.com and pick yourself up a NEC 16x DVD burner for like $55. I rip my cd's with it and it does a great job plus it's not much more then a cd/rw dvd combo and you can burn dvd backups of all your cd's. ASUS A7V8X AMD XP 2700+ 2.17ghz 768mb ddr 2700 nVidia 128mb FX 5200 WD 80gb SE DVD R/RW