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NEC-2500A is bringing my system to a crawl

M

McQualude

Member
I have always had Yamaha SCSI burners and loved them but 3 years ago I bought a Dell PC instead of building my own and it came with a Samsung CD burner. I was never happy with the Samsung, too many coasters so I bought an NEC2500A.

When I burn CDs, it doesn't really slow the system down enough to worry about, but when I burn a DVDR, I can't use the computer for anything else. At first I thought this was because it was an IDE burner, but I've been told this is not normal and that I should be able to multitask while burning a DVD. The burner is using Ultra DMA 2. I already upgraded the firmware and I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling. The burner is on the same IDE with my DVD drive.

Any ideas? It's an annoying problem. I never had these problems with SCSI burners.

Dell Dimension 4550
2.53Ghz P4
768MB RAM
WinXP sp2

Thanks for any suggestions.
 
ive seen this happen when a burner malfunctions and resets itself to PIO mode (which is very processor intensive). but you said its running in DMA, so I guess that is ruled out.
 
According to Device Manager it is running in Ultra DMA 2.

Could the drive be bad?

I bought it as a Mad Dog Dominator 6-in-1 Dual 8X DVD-RW, which is really a rebadged NEC-2500A. My computer recognizes it as such. I'll have to check the warranty and see if I can still return it.
 
Where are you burning from? With IDE you want the source and the destination to be on different controllers.
 
[LTC8K6] From the hard drive, they are on different controllers

[dareality] Start, Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager
 
Sounds like you got spoiled with the Yamaha SCSI burner, which burns with no CPU loading at all (me too). Are you sure your hard drive and DVD drive are still using DMA. Sometimes repeat errors will kick them into pio. Also, I know you are taking about CPU cycles but if you were copying on the fly from the DVD on the same IDE channel, then I would expect it to take a long time since only one drive can access at a time. Lastly, just for the hell of it, try different media, updating your firmware, or different burning software. I know it sounds crazy but it might be struggling with marginal media.
 
I just burned another DVD to check the actual CPU and memory load. CPU usage peaked at 4%, memory usage peaked at ~90,000K; a lot, but not enough to slow things down so significantly. I already answered about the IDE channel and firmware. I've tried several types of DVD media, both + and -, 2X, 4X and 8X, good brands, Fuji from Japan, TDK, Memorex.

I've tried Nero6 and Deepburner for DVDRs; Nero6, Fireburner and Roxio for CDRs. There is some minor slowdown when burning CDRs with Nero, but zero slowdown when using Fireburner. When burning DVDRs, things start off fine, but gradually it takes longer to switch windows until finally near the end of the burn it can take several minutes just to switch to a different (already open) window or even to scroll down a few lines.

Assuming this not normal behavior for IDE burners, I believe that either the drive is bad or there is something wacked with the motherboard or drivers.
 
Check your CPU usage when it happens... if CPU usage is high then your drive is using PIO mode and you can change that under Device Manager; if your CPU usage is low, then you may have the same problem I have.

http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDMA.htm

If you do have the same problem, please post your machine specifics.
 
Drop a P4 with HT in there! 😀

Have you tried installing Intel's Application Accelerator? I'm not sure if your chipset can use it though.
 
On my 3GHz P4 system, i can do some multitasking during burning.....however, if i turn off Hyperthreading in the bios and then burn a dvd, everything gets very slow.

Hyper-threading helps out quite a bit while burning for me. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Have you tried installing Intel's Application Accelerator? I'm not sure if your chipset can use it though.
Click to expand...
I thought about it but was warned that it caused more problems than it solved. Sometimes it's tough to judge advice you get on the net because the people who have problems tend to be the most vocal, even if they are a small percentage.
 
Originally posted by: daveybrat
On my 3GHz P4 system, i can do some multitasking during burning.....however, if i turn off Hyperthreading in the bios and then burn a dvd, everything gets very slow.
Click to expand...
Hmmm, so maybe this is normal behavior. When I asked this question on a newsgroup, I was assured that my system shouldn't slow down at all and that I should have no trouble multitasking while burning a DVD. I received many responses to that effect.

I think my chipset, i845PE, supports hyperthreading, but my CPU doesn't. I don't think it's worth spending $250 for a new CPU and another stick of memory just for hyperthreading.

 
You should have no problems burning dvd with your box if your not in pio

I've tried Nero6 and Deepburner for DVDRs; Nero6, Fireburner and Roxio for CDRs. There is some minor slowdown when burning CDRs with Nero, but zero slowdown when using Fireburner. When burning DVDRs, things start off fine, but gradually it takes longer to switch windows until finally near the end of the burn it can take several minutes just to switch to a different (already open) window or even to scroll down a few lines.
Click to expand...

Have you got all those progs installed on the box now?

 
Tough to use them if they aren't installed. I installed Deepburner to see if it would have the same problem as Nero, it does.

I installed IAA. I'll find out if it works next time I burn a DVD.
 
Well it seems that the Intel Application Accelerator had a positive effect. I burned a DVD and was able to multi-task. Instead of taking minutes to switch windows, it only took a few seconds; not perfect but a huge improvement.
 
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