Pioneer DVR-A08 Dead?

[YaKuZa]

Hi,

I just got this burner (DVR-A08) recently back in January. I've been doing a lot of burning and it was working fine with Fuji 8x DVD-R and DVD+R media. Then all of a sudden, it started taking 30 mins to burn at 8x (11,080 kb/s). When I burn with Nero, it estimates 6:50 mins to burn, but it goes way over that. I didn't change any settings during this time. It just started burning really slowly. The buffer level goes crazy when I burn, it jumps from 23% -> 88% and keeps fluctuating really fast.

Is my burner dead? I already checked my DMA settings, and its set to 2. Should it be higher? I will try and plug the burner into an ATA controller card and see if that helps.

Any other suggestions please before I have to do a RMA. Thanks a lot!

 

[Zepper]

Any smokers in the house? Cook a lot of fried foods (bacon, etc) w/o proper vent hood? If yes to either you may need to clean your laser assemblies/optics in the burner. I like to disassemble mine and clean the optics manually (I use chamois or foam lint-free swabs with a little isopropyl alcohol and dry with lens paper), but you can try one of the wet-system cleaning disks first. DMA2 is wrong I think (should be UDMA mode 2 or 4 per spec sheet - but can run PIO4/DMA2) - what kind of cable are you using with that drive (40 or 80 wire) - should be using 80-wire cable for UDMA mode 4 (66MB/s)?
. Also install or update the ASPI software from Nero or you can DL from Adaptec.com (I know it says for SCSI, but does magic tricks for burners too).

.bh.

 

[Bozo Galora]

"put it onto an ATA controller" - whats it on now?


several thougts
make sure its set to DMA 2 not PIO 2 in "advanced" tab
80 conductor cable - set as master?
there have been probs with VIA chipsets - installing MS IDE's not VIA fixed it
and the HIMAT prob
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=27&threadid=1502624&enterthread=y
make sure you have 118 firmware

 

[YaKuZa]

Thanks for the replies.

Everything is current, including ASPI drivers, firmware, etc.

It's currently connected to my motherboard, not the controller card. And it is UDMA 2, Secondary Slave drive.

I'm not going to take anything apart and risk voiding the warranty. Plus, I don't think it's a dirt issue because it burns fine, just not at 8x. Is that really caused by dirt? I thought dust or whatever caused read/write problems and not speed.

The thing I don't understand is that it was working fine until about a week ago. Then I started burning a lot and I think I may have worn it out. But do these things break that quickly? Anybody else have any experiences with DVR's dying on them if they mass burn?

 

[techfuzz]

Anything with moving parts is subject to failure eventually. Just drop $65 on a brand new 16x burner that supports dual layer and all your problems are going to be a distant memory.

techfuzz

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: techfuzz
Anything with moving parts is subject to failure eventually. Just drop $65 on a brand new 16x burner that supports dual layer and all your problems are going to be a distant memory.

techfuzz

His burner can already do that.


I would say see if you can get an RMA. Sounds like it is atleast dying, perhaps not dead yet.

 

[techfuzz]

Originally posted by: JBT

Originally posted by: techfuzz
Anything with moving parts is subject to failure eventually. Just drop $65 on a brand new 16x burner that supports dual layer and all your problems are going to be a distant memory.

techfuzz

His burner can already do that.


I would say see if you can get an RMA. Sounds like it is atleast dying, perhaps not dead yet.

I didn't think 8x burners supported 16x and dual layer.. News to me

techfuzz

 

[airfoil]

I know you said the drive was UDMA2, but have you physically checked Device Manager to ensure that DMA is actually enabled?

This happened to me with my PX708-A - for no apparent reason the drive was taking forever to write a DVD at 8X - took me a while to figure out that DMA somehow got disabled (may have happened after I flashed the BIOS).

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: techfuzz

Originally posted by: JBT

Originally posted by: techfuzz
Anything with moving parts is subject to failure eventually. Just drop $65 on a brand new 16x burner that supports dual layer and all your problems are going to be a distant memory.

techfuzz

His burner can already do that.


I would say see if you can get an RMA. Sounds like it is atleast dying, perhaps not dead yet.

I didn't think 8x burners supported 16x and dual layer.. News to me

techfuzz

8x burners cant, but he has a 16x pioneer burner. A08 is 16x with dual layer.

 

[Zepper]

two months isn't "eventually" in my book...

.bh.

Here, have a :beer: !

 

[JBT]

Originally posted by: Tiamat

Originally posted by: techfuzz

Originally posted by: JBT

Originally posted by: techfuzz
Anything with moving parts is subject to failure eventually. Just drop $65 on a brand new 16x burner that supports dual layer and all your problems are going to be a distant memory.

techfuzz

His burner can already do that.


I would say see if you can get an RMA. Sounds like it is atleast dying, perhaps not dead yet.

I didn't think 8x burners supported 16x and dual layer.. News to me

techfuzz

8x burners cant, but he has a 16x pioneer burner. A08 is 16x with dual layer.

thanks for the assist

 

[thunderroller]

may be bad quality of media

 

[Bozo Galora]

he said he's using fuji +R -R 8X - which is fine

anyway, I have 2 of these, never had a prob
you could go in safe mode and delete all opticals in dev manager and reboot, redetect
reinstall IDE busmaster drivers also -MS variety from CD

to see if its really the drive, and not XP - you are going to have to jumper as master, put at end of cable by itself on secondary
another thing - Nero seems to suck all my avail RAM. Download BySoft FreeRam (free) and watch avail system RAM as you burn

there have also been some XP SP2 issues with certain burner modules, like InCD

Might want to run Memtest 86+ for a few cycles