odd cdrom behaviour

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bryan
  • Start date Start date
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Bryan

i have 2 optical drives. both are acting strangely. they seem to be very
slow in transfering data. they work, but extremely slowly. for example,
something that took about 5 minutes on my laptop to install, took over 40
minutes on my desktop. im thinking ide controller, yet ive never had one of
these fail on me, so im skeptical.
drivers for my motherboard are not listed, supposedly winxp takes care of
that.

asus a7v266-e

dvdrom (old one, 2 speed or something)
cdrw 32x fairly new, generic brand.

any ideas?

thanks alot
bryan
 
i have 2 optical drives. both are acting strangely. they seem to be very
slow in transfering data. they work, but extremely slowly. for example,
something that took about 5 minutes on my laptop to install, took over 40
minutes on my desktop. im thinking ide controller, yet ive never had one of
these fail on me, so im skeptical.
drivers for my motherboard are not listed, supposedly winxp takes care of
that.

asus a7v266-e

dvdrom (old one, 2 speed or something)
cdrw 32x fairly new, generic brand.
Click to expand...

Install the driver
http://downloads.viaarena.com/drivers/4in1/VIA_Hyperion 4IN1_V451v.zip
reboot, then go into Device Manager and check, enable dma for all
drives, then reboot again.

Never trust xp's drivers, get the proper driver from your device or
chipset manufacturer.
 
didn't work

it seems to work fine for a while then it starts slowing down

its real odd

anyone know of any diognostic tools?

bry
 
Are both of these on the same IDE cable? if so, which one is set as
the master? Unfortunatly, if you don't recall, you will have to pull
one or both of the drives out to check. set the CD-Rom as the master
and see if this helps at all. Another choice is to try a new IDE cable
as well. Finally, if the 32x drive is not a CD/RW, you may want to
get a cd cleaning disk.
 
didn't work

it seems to work fine for a while then it starts slowing down

its real odd

anyone know of any diognostic tools?

bry
Click to expand...

More specific detail might (or might not) help...

How long is "work fine for a while"?
What's the rate difference between "fine" and "slowing down"?
Is there any kind of pattern, commonality, occuring before it slows
down?

Do you mean that during the same reading attempt, it reads fast then
progressively gets slower, or suddenly, or ?

We can assume these are pressed (retail) discs in relatively good
condition, not CDRs subject to burning errors or slow rot?
Does it seem that files towards the inner tracks read ok but outer
tracks are worse?

Is the system in a somewhat dusty environment, if you open the tray
and peer inside do you see significant dust accumulation? Are you a
smoker?

You might run some tests with Nero "CDSpeed"
http://www.cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=download.html
 
they are on the same cable, yet it used to be fine. so i doubt it that.

it is a cdrw, purchased a month ago.

the cd is a brand new full pressed cd (msdn to be exact)

it seems to slow down gradually, but quickly, in the span of about 10
seconds it dies down to a snail pace..

ive run nero cd speed, it completes successfully and reates and average of
28.73x

don't smoke, and its not too dusty

sorry for the vagueness of my last post.

bry
 
they are on the same cable, yet it used to be fine. so i doubt it that.

it is a cdrw, purchased a month ago.
Click to expand...

So the read speed, slowdown, occurs roughly equally, on both optical
drives?

What brand is this generic?
If it's something like a relabeled liteon or Benq, it might be worth
the effort. If it's something like a Top-G/Top Glory/BTC/Behavior
Tech, it's trash and that's where it belongs.

Either way, unless you can, want to, return it, you might try updating
it's firmware. If it's a relabeled drive then you might need goto the
actual manufacturer, and/or there may be some kind of
technique/mod/hack needed to get it to accept the regular firmware...
some CDRW-oriented websites, forums, can be helpful to determine this
or find the necessary methods.

Also try leaving the new CDRW disconnected from the system,
rejumpering the other drive if necessary, see if it makes a
difference. Windows Updates can do bad things too, it's best to avoid
them unless it's manditory, security risk or necessary feature
addition.

Forgive me if you've already stated it, but to be clear, the system
always worked properly in this regard, until addition of the new CDRW
drive, and nothing else has been changed which coincided with the
onset of the slowdowns?
the cd is a brand new full pressed cd (msdn to be exact)
Click to expand...

Just for the heck of it you might reexamine the CD, try another if you
haven't already.
it seems to slow down gradually, but quickly, in the span of about 10
seconds it dies down to a snail pace..

ive run nero cd speed, it completes successfully and reates and average of
28.73x
Click to expand...

So this seems OK, but was this while you would've expected the drive
to read ok, or after it'd began to slowdown?
If at all possible, try to replicate the slowdown and then test with
CDSpeed.
 
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