Pioneer DVR-104. Read speeds are slow as hell

[NFS4]

I have a Pioneer DVR-104 DVD-RW drive and ever since I got this drive, the read speeds are slow as hell. Takes forever to read/copy from a CD (especially burned CD's). In comparison, my BTC 32x10x32 burner reads CD's extremely fast and would be done minutes before the DVR-104 catches its breath. IT doesn't matter if I put the drive on a seperate channel by itself or hooked up to IDE channel 1 with my hard drive.

I have firmware version 1.33, but I've tried at least 3 others and it's still slow.

 

[Adul]

Some drives are just slow.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Adul
Some drives are just slow.

For some reason, that line from Forest Gump popped into my head when I read that:

"Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks"

Hehe

 

[spanky]

back in the day, i had a mitsumi drive that was slow as fsck... so i'm gonna have to agree with adul.

 

[Wiseguy69]

Where did you buy it? Can you return it and get another? I've read a lot of reviews on this drive an none have mentioned a read problem or slow reads. Does pioneer put out drivers for this drive?

Also, this may sound funny but try to reflash your system bios. I've seen it done to fix bad hard drive access speeds once. I personally tried it after that when my case and cpu fans wouldn't start running when I turned on my computer. Just reflashed the current bios and viola! they worked.

 

[jagr10]

How is it in reading dvd's? Is it just as slow or is it pretty fast? Personally, i would use a dvdrom for everyday reading, a cd burner for cdr's, and dvd burner strictly for dvd burning. These all in ones are never good at everything.

 

[Kwad Guy]

Pioneer locked DVD reading the DVR-105 (and I would expect DVR-104) at 2x, even though the drive can theoretically read at 12x. Supposedly they did this to make the drive more quiet when using it to play DVDs (it doesn't spin as fast)...

Kwad

 

[txxxx]

Its quiet normal for this drive. My 105 is supposed to be an improvement, although slow at dvd-r' imaging.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: jagr10
How is it in reading dvd's? Is it just as slow or is it pretty fast? Personally, i would use a dvdrom for everyday reading, a cd burner for cdr's, and dvd burner strictly for dvd burning. These all in ones are never good at everything.

Well, it's a Cendyne drive (which is nothing but a Pioneer DVR-104, the label on the drive even says as much. It also says that it is a Pioneer drive upon POST) that I got from OfficeMax.

It's slow at reading EVERYTHING. DVD's that I have burned using the drive read slow (I just use this burner for data backup of my files and MP3's). And it's slow reading CDs too. It plays back movie DVD's just fine b/c I guess they don't need to be read that fast.

I used to have a Philips 16X slot-load DVD drive and it absolutely r@ped this thing in read speeds.

 

[Kwad Guy]

Read my post above. Yes, it has cr*p DVD extraction speeds. Pioneer LOCKED the speed to 2x. Theoretically, it can extract at 12x. But it won't until/unless Pioneer or someone else posts firmware to enable that...

Kwad

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: Kwad Guy
Read my post above. Yes, it has cr*p DVD extraction speeds. Pioneer LOCKED the speed to 2x. Theoretically, it can extract at 12x. But it won't until/unless Pioneer or someone else posts firmware to enable that...

Kwad

Well, that would explain it except for the fact that its CD read speed is supposed to be 24x

 

[Kwad Guy]

Hmmm...Yeah, OK, I can't help you there. I do not believe CD read speeds are locked. I could be wrong, but to my knowledge, only the DVD rip speed is locked.

Kwad