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Slow CD-Burning :(

I

ianbergman

Senior member
OK... i've been tearing my hair out trying to figure out why my crappy new CD burner can't burn faster than 24x... here's the lowdown.

200GB 8MB cache hard drive, 7200rpm, attached through ATA-133 PCI card.
- same speed with the 80GB 7200rpm plugged straight into the ATA-100 mobo
MSI K7T266APro2 motherboard
1GB RAM

SiSoft Sandra 2003 benchmarks every system as operating right about where it should be - I can't find any bottlenecks.

However, I can't burn at faster than about 3800K/sec - 25x, or so. I have a 48X BenQ (cendyne brand) burner, using a variety of 48x-rated media.

Nero's speed test says 24x is the max it can read from the HD. The IDE cables are all new and in good order. Right now, the CD burner is plugged in to the ATA-133 card on the PCI bus as well, but it's been plugged straight into the motherboard before with the same results. Any ideas out there? Is this a bum burner? The reason I don't think it is is that nero really seems like it thinks the source can't keep up with the burner - it has to engage buffer underrun protection at higher speeds than 24X. The benchmarks say that the HD should be able to throw out 17MB/sec or more.

Help!
 
rated at 48 -- i've tried with several brands.

One other thing I noticed is that processor utilization is pretty high, but it never peaks... somewhere around 80% most of the time during the burn.
 
Have you flashed it to the latest firmware and installed the latest 4in1's? Made certain it's in DMA mode? BTW, Sandra blows for disk performance eval IMO.
 
DMA mode is probably your ticket. If not, I believe nero has an option to turn off automatic speed limiting based on "test" speeds it reads from your system. Also, see if the max speed setting changes from when you have buffer underrun protection turned off and when its turned on. I had a defective drive once that would burn at different speeds based on if BURN was turned on.
 
yeah, DMA's on. I tried to turn Seamless Link (my drive's buffer underrun tech) off, but it won't let me -- the checkbox in Nero is grayed out. Very frustrating... I can copy a file off this HD to another HD at 20+MB/sec, but I can't copy to a CD at anywhere near that speed.
 
Just so you know 48x CD-Burning != Twice as 24X CD-Burning. You will probably be only saving about 1 minute per disc.
 
Have you have tried burning from one channel (primary ata100) on the mobo to another (secondary ata100) on the mobo (wouldn't try to interface with the ATA133 card for this test - in case its a driver limitation or nero problem with that card)?

Have you updated your Nero lately?

Might just be the drive too.

 
It may very well be the drive.

Question: Are you using the copy of Nero that came with your Drive, because SeamlessLink should be enabled. Also, make sure you don't accidentally have the virtual image burner selected as your recorder of choice.
 
I am not using the Nero that came with my drive... it came with a Nero Express #; I'm using my full version. SeamlessLink is enabled; I can't turn it off if I wanted to. And the correct burner is selected.

Think I'm going to try and return the drive.
 
Umm.. I need to ask a question...

What are you burning? Audio or Data?

Most programs limit audio burning to 24x due to the audio quality becoming degraded at faster right speeds.

I'm not saying this is the case with yours, but it could be if you're burning Audio and only getting 24x speeds.

 
Is the Cd-rw hooked up to the on board ide or the pci ide card? I had a 48x plextor hooked to a pci promise card that gave me terrible 5:00 + minute burn times. I though it was the plextor so I hooked up a lite-on 52x and it did the same thing. I had the latest firmwares and drivers. If it is hooked up to the pci card, try the integrated controller.
 
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