CD and CDrw running slow, help!

[DLzone]

I have an old P3 600 and it has a creative 48x cdrom and hp 8100 cdrw. My problem is that the cdrom has never run at the full 48x or the burner, the most they seem to be able to get up to is 4x. Could this be a power supply issue? Although I havn't checked I think the power supply is 220w one, this doens't seem very adequate for powering the rig.

Here are the specs.
P3 600 @ 733
Asus CUV4X
512 ram
Maxtor 60 gig
Maxtor 15 gig
Sound Blaster Live 5.1
Geforce 3 Ti 200
Hp Cdrw 8100 series
Creative 48x Cdrom

 

[MrDudeMan]

dunno if the PSU is the main problem but 220w is way too low. i wouldnt feel comfortable with anything less than 300w.

 

[Budman]

I got 3 letters for you.

DMA ,enable it.

 

[onelin]

check the first posted advice first

As an aside, note that the speed ratings of CDROMs are far from truthful. As far as I'm concerned, until the company markets it otherwise, 48X (or any other speed) stands for 48X MAX, which means it will only ever even approach that when reading the outside of the CD. Most CDROMs hardly ever come close to their rated speeds, the only drives I know of that do this are the Kenwood TrueX series of CDROMs, but for some reason even with low RPM they have a habit of dying faster than normal high-RPM CDROMS (my 72X True died). Good idea, poorly assembled or something :/

If you by chance have the two on the same IDE channel, the burner may also slow down the CDROM. I'm not sure if only while it's being accessed, or what. I'm no expert, just a few thoughts to throw as I've had many unique CDROMs, heh.

 

[DLzone]

Budman DMA is enabled, but it still runs slow, both the hard drives are on the one ide and the cd drives are on another could this be a problem?