Weird problems

pcman83

Senior member
Oct 20, 2003
397
0
0
Hey guys,

I have a problem it deals with when im using my cd burner and a lot of hard drive activity.

Like a example is when im burning a cd with nero or taking a lot of info from my cdrom to my hard drive.

I am pretty sure both my hard drives are on one channel and my hard drives are on my other channel.

What happens is that the computer really slows down like if im listeing to mp3s or any audio it goes like in slow motion.

Anyone had this problem?

I have a very fast computer.

Let me know.
 

Jalapeno

Senior member
Dec 26, 2000
991
10
81
Originally posted by: pcman83
Hey guys,



I have a very fast computer.

Apparently not.

On the same channel might be the problem. Don't burn "on the fly" - copy whatever you are burning to the hard drive first.
 

pcman83

Senior member
Oct 20, 2003
397
0
0
Actually i do have a very fast computer.

Also i found out that when i copy data from the drive the cpu usage rises to 50%. Now if i copy from my dvd drive it is only around 4%. Do you think my cdburner is defective?

If so are the cheap lite ons good burners?
 

Chang10is

Senior member
Jun 19, 2002
288
0
0
Lite-on is a very good brand, and it is normal for CPU usage to rise to 50%. I think my levels have gone up to 80% on a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz. Just to verify, are you saying that your mp3 playing slows down when you're trying to burn a CD at the same time? Even with a fast computer, I don't think you can expect your system to be able to do both simultaneously. I always refrain from doing anything heavy, and often times I just let my computer go on its own w/o any interference from me when burning CDs.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
0
Check in Device Manager to ensure that your primary and secondary IDE controllers are running the drives in UltraDMA mode and not PIO mode, for starters. If you have not yet installed your Intel .INF updates, go here and do that first.
 

Metaphor

Junior Member
Feb 29, 2004
10
0
0
Originally posted by: pcman83
Actually i do have a very fast computer.

Ok, you seem to repeat yourself here, be a big man and tell us all what your machine consists of.

Metaphor.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
0
Originally posted by: Metaphor
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Click "Rig" in his signature, Metaphor :D

Heh... Heh. Heh.. My bad... :eek:
It's ok, we are all allowed three mistakes before they ban us for good :Q



;) ;) ;)

 

pcman83

Senior member
Oct 20, 2003
397
0
0
but see even when i copy data from the drive it will go up to 50% cpu usage. Thats not normal is it? I found out that it is running in pio mode or whatever so im going to try and change that. But are all drives able to use ultradma? It was a generic cheap burner.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
0
Originally posted by: pcman83
but see even when i copy data from the drive it will go up to 50% cpu usage. Thats not normal is it? I found out that it is running in pio mode or whatever so im going to try and change that. But are all drives able to use ultradma? It was a generic cheap burner.
It is almost certainly designed to use UDMA, even my ancient Philips Omniwriter 2x2x6 (a $600 burner back in the day) used UDMA.

 

pcman83

Senior member
Oct 20, 2003
397
0
0
Hey guys i tryed to set it to ultra dma but it keeps saying its running in pio mode. Any way to force it?
 

pcman83

Senior member
Oct 20, 2003
397
0
0
in the bios it says its running at ultra dma 2 and in windows its saying poi mode? Please help should i buy a new drive or not?
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
0
Try this: in the Device Manager window, right-click the controller that the optical drives are on, and tell it to Uninstall them, then reboot (it may take two reboots since it will re-discover the controller on the first reboot). After that, try again to set it to UltraDMA mode. If it won't, then maybe your ribbon cable is not very good, or is too long (18 inches is the official limit IIRC). You might also try swapping the Master and Slave assignments between the two optical drives, that's been known to work before.
 

pcman83

Senior member
Oct 20, 2003
397
0
0
well i bought a new liteon hopefully my problem dies with the old drive. And they are 36" cables but my dvd drive is on the same cable and its running at ultra dma 4 so i think its a drive problem
 

pcman83

Senior member
Oct 20, 2003
397
0
0
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Try this: in the Device Manager window, right-click the controller that the optical drives are on, and tell it to Uninstall them, then reboot (it may take two reboots since it will re-discover the controller on the first reboot). After that, try again to set it to UltraDMA mode. If it won't, then maybe your ribbon cable is not very good, or is too long (18 inches is the official limit IIRC). You might also try swapping the Master and Slave assignments between the two optical drives, that's been known to work before.


YOU ARE GOD

you fixed it, as soon as i did that it picked up ultra dma 2.

The problem is that i already ordered the drive from newegg. Hopefully i can cancel the new cd burner.

Thanks so much man. but you were 20 minutes late.

thanks again its working great now.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
0
w00t! :cool: I don't recall who I learned that trick from, but the underlying concept was that if Windows detected too many data errors on a certain drive, it would go

:p ~ hmm, somethin's wrong with this thing, I better downshift it to PIO mode

and it gets that set in its mind and you can't persuade it otherwise. :( But if you delete and re-detect the controller it's attached to, this resets Windows' circuit breaker, so to speak. Hopefully it holds onto UDMA mode from now on, but keep an eye on it. If you do get the Lite-On, it still may work out for the best in the end... they're a good value, they're fast, they come with Nero Express, and people have been giving them the thumbs-up for quite a while around here :)