When burning CD's computer slows down.

[nubomb]

Am I expecting to much here? When I burn CD's I can't do anything else. Draging the mouse across the screan is labor intensive. Any suggestions? Thanks!

AMD 900 Tbird
MSI PRO2A
WD 20G ata66 7200
SB Live MP3+
ATI AIW 128 PRO
PC133 128 Cas3
HP external CD R/RW 2x4x12

 

[stockjock]

I say 2 things are affecting you.
1.) Your borderline low on the Ram for burning
2.) How much hard drive space do you have left?

If your hard drive is pretty close to full then your swap space is very limited causing a very slow burn.
Just my .02 worth

 

[nubomb]

Brand New Hard Drive, lots of space left. I was thinking the same thing with the RAM. So this shouldn't be a problem, I should be able to perform multiple functions? What about playing games and burning?

 

[esung]

it's an external unit? how was it connected? and what program were running in the background/foreground?

 

[TechieChick]

First off....burning a cd is a memory sucking experience and using an external 2x is going to really drag the process out. If you are bent on multitasking while burning invest in a SCSI and you will lower your risk of creating coasters. If a SCSI is out of budget range then consider getting an internal Plextor 12x or Yamaha 16x, the Yamaha has an 8mb buffer and is less than $300.00 This will at least speed up the burning process. (ie. full cd copy in less than 5 minutes) I'm running a Yamaha 16x with 512mb ram and a 1Ghz TB athalon and I don't multitask while burning even though I could probably do a few minor things. One thing to keep in mind if you go internal ide do not string it on the same cable as your hard drive. Slave it to your cd-rom.

Good Luck

 

[joeyjojoe]

external huh? i think this is your problem. isn't it like you computer trying to print ... 600 megs of data (if you use the parallel port)? try printing a 600 meg file and see how well your computer runs. anyway, i have an HP 9100 8x4x32 and i can do anything while burning (with the exception of the lead out time).

i agree that if you are willing to spend the money you should look into buying an internal, and although the scsi use less cpu the difference isn't noticeable to me.

thats just my opinion though.

 

[stockjock]

Techiechick is dead on with this one. I did not notice the external part...your gonna need a lot more ram to run that guy, especially if you want to do some multitasking.

 

[nubomb]

Thanks for the replies.

It is external and parrallel port. And I don't believe I have anything running in the background.

At some point I'll buy a better CD R/RW. That Yamaha sounds really nice! First things first, I need better RAM.

 

[TechieChick]

nubomb

I suffered with a 4x internal for quite awhile before purchasing this yamaha last month. I've included a link to TigerDirects site for the drive and it's currently priced at $249.00

Some will call me excessivily retentive about the way I burn and avoid doing anything else but I burn so much (drivers for clients etc) that I can't take the time to do it over again and I hate burning coasters.

One more tip...once you get a new burner and install the software (usually Adaptec) open up the program and run the test portion. This will test the drives and your hard drive for speed and accuracy and I've found it really helps in the long run.