Buffer Underruns occurring all of a sudden..

[Nightweaver2]

Hi,

I've got an HP 9110i burner that I've been using with CDRWin without any problems for the past 2 months. All of a sudden, a couple of days ago I started receiving buffer underrun errors when trying to burn. I've tried both CDRwin and EZCD, image files and CD copies, defragging, scandisk, changing other options (DMA, etc.), but to no avail. I brun from the hd (IBM ATA/66, 7200rpm), I have a PIII 500E, 128MB RAM, and doing nothing in the background.

The first time I tried it in EZCD, I noticed that the Buffer level started high, but eventually got reduced to like 1-2% until it finally failed. Does this sound like a defective buffer on the burner? Anyone have any other ideas/suggestions? I've called HP, and they told me to turn off a bunch of settings (DMA on my CD-ROM, Sync Data, etc.) but these have not helped. I haven't changed my system config since I installed the burner, so I don't understand why any settings should be causing a problem. Besides, the route they seem to be taking is to "slow down" the rest of my system for some reason.

Any help would be appreciated,

Nightweaver.

 

[jblondi]

Ive got a couple suggestions.
Make sure you are free of system resources. Make sure other programs are not running. Defrag the hardrive. I had a similar problem and after i defraged it fixed everything up.

Hope this helps.

 

[Nightweaver2]

Thanks for the tips, but I've already tried them. Defragged my drive, scandisked the drive, made sure all programs were closed. No help..

Any other ideas?

 

[Mark R]

Can you find out at which point the burn fails?

Nero will tell you the exact point on the disc that an error occurs. It may be worth trying Nero - it has a pretty stable engine, so shouldn't give problems.

Alternatively, if you want to try audio, then feurio is great - and probably has the most stable burning engine out there - no matter what I've tried, I can't get it to underrun on my system. Even firing up Q3A in the middle of an 8x burn doesn't seem to bother it.

The reason why finding out the point where there errors occur, is that it helps to narrow down the source of the error - if it is more or less random, then it suggests a problem with the software or the computer. If it is the same (or almost the same) position whenever you use the same type of blank, changing only when you try a different type of blank, it strongly suggests a fault with the burner.

 

[MrChicken]

If auto-insert notification is on, turn that off.
Is this an IDE drive, if so make sure you IDE drivers didnt get hosed by checking device manager. I had something like this happen when my bus master IDE drivers got trashes, probably after a system crash and didnt really notice because the default driver kept it working.

 

[Nightweaver2]

Thanks for the replies.

The burns stop near the beginning of the burn; usually between 6-10%. If I use EZCD, which provides a buffer level % indicator, I can watch as the buffer steadily drops down to 1-2% then hovers there for a few seconds before the burn ultimately craps out. To me, this indicated some kind of problem with the burner's buffer.

It is an IDE drive, and the settings all appear to be correct. I spoke to HP on the phone and they actually got me to turn off a few settings and whatnot, which did not have any affect.

In the end, the burner is being RMA'ed. I was going to try Nero, but when I installed it, Windows really crapped out on my for some reason--BSOD on bootup, then Windows Protection Error when I uninstalled it. However, both other burning programs (CDRWin and EZCD Creator) experienced the same problem, so I tend to think it is not software related.

 

[pylorns]

Are you burning from cd to cd or hd to cd? Get the latest adaptec updates. Also your burner may have some flash rom updates. Check for those just in case. But if yuor burning from your hard drive and you get buffer underrun that means something is going on. Do you have DMA turned on the hard drive? Are you using power management? If so turn off power management. make sure you dont have your screensavers gonig. What version of windows are you using? when was the last time you re-installed? And last but not least.. how old is your hard drive and have you had any other problems with it.. cause it could be dieing.

 

[Nightweaver2]

Well, the entire system is only a few months old. The hd is an IBM 7200rpm, ATA 66 and hdtach shows it running fine. Nothing else was running in the background, and I ALWAYS burn from the hd. Worked fine for many burns up until it just stopped a couple of days ago. No other problems with the system.

 

[Admo]

What exactly are you burning? Games, now, put intensional errors at the begining of the cd that will cause the buffer to crash. My suggestion is to take a look at the cd contents (if you are burning cd to cd) with CDRWIN and see what types of data are on the cd. If there is a lot of "circles" you need to find a check box that says: "Ignore Errors" or something like that. (I'm not sure exactly where it would be at because I'm at work.) Hope this helps ya.

Adam

 

[goog40]

How much free hard drive space do you have and what are your cache settings in your burning programs?

 

[poolshark]

where do you get feurio

 

[Nightweaver2]

I have tried burning various cds (always cd-hd-cd), including games and apps. In fact, one cd I successfully burned a few days earlier would not burn anymore. I have lots of free hd space (>7GB avail). I'll take a look at the CD with CDRWin, that's a good idea. I still find it strange that things just "stopped" working all of a sudden, though. Anyway, I've sent it in to HP and they are taking a look at it. I'll have to wait and see what they find out (or I get a new burner).

 

[Edski]

Have you added any new hardware OR software recently? I have had problems with a system when I added some software, from then on...constant buffer underrun errors until I started from scratch and rebuilt the system.

 

[Nightweaver2]

Well, I've installed a few games and maybe a new app or two, but nothing major.. And I hadn't installed anything immediately before the burner stopped working. I just got it back today and it looks like they exchanged it, so I'll have to see if that fixed the problem. I'll keep my fingers crossed.