Slow Burn

  • Thread starter Thread starter I.C. Koets
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I.C. Koets

I hope this is the correct newsgroup for my question.
I have a computer with a DVD burner. The manual claims that it is capable of
16x burning (around 20 MB/sec), but it never burns faster than 1.1x.
I tried fooling around with settings in my burning software, but it doesn't
help. I upgraded the burner firmware, ran tests - nothing seems to be wrong.
My read buffer always stays above 90%, my disk throughput is measured by
Nero as 60x, I use 8x disks, I have tried both autodetect and forced burn
speeds at 8x with no results, I always keep over 200 MB of unallocated RAM
throughout the burn, my CPU load is never higher than 45%, and I run nothing
in the background.
I tried both Alcohol 120% and Nero 6, both with the same results.
My system usually runs admirably, never stutters or crashes under any load I
tried.


What can I do to fix this?

My system:
ASUS P5GD1 motherboard
Intel 3.0 GHz CPU
512 MB RAM (Which is never used up - I checked)
NEC ND-3500A burner
Windows 2000 Pro SP4 with recent drivers
Nero 6 burning software
Platinum 8x DVD+R blank disks
 
"I.C. Koets" said:
I hope this is the correct newsgroup for my question.
I have a computer with a DVD burner. The manual claims that it is capable of
16x burning (around 20 MB/sec), but it never burns faster than 1.1x.
I tried fooling around with settings in my burning software, but it doesn't
help. I upgraded the burner firmware, ran tests - nothing seems to be wrong.
My read buffer always stays above 90%, my disk throughput is measured by
Nero as 60x, I use 8x disks, I have tried both autodetect and forced burn
speeds at 8x with no results, I always keep over 200 MB of unallocated RAM
throughout the burn, my CPU load is never higher than 45%, and I run nothing
in the background.
I tried both Alcohol 120% and Nero 6, both with the same results.
My system usually runs admirably, never stutters or crashes under any load I
tried.


What can I do to fix this?

My system:
ASUS P5GD1 motherboard
Intel 3.0 GHz CPU
512 MB RAM (Which is never used up - I checked)
NEC ND-3500A burner
Windows 2000 Pro SP4 with recent drivers
Nero 6 burning software
Platinum 8x DVD+R blank disks
Click to expand...

Would the computer be running the IDE interface in PIO
(polled I/O mode - CPU does the transfer) versus the
faster DMA mode (direct memory access) ? Check Device
Manager and see if there is something that says
"DMA If Available".

A disk run in PIO mode, will achieve about 4MB/sec transfer
rate, which is fast enough to do your 1.1x thing.

Sometimes, the reason you are in PIO mode, is because of
this. See the Workaround section of this article.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

I've also had a problem with Nero, that caused the whole
burning process to freeze. It turned out, I had a virtual
CD mounted at the same time I was burning. Disabling the
virtual CD mount returned things to normal. Whatever tool
I was using, had a control panel of its very own, so was
easy to spot - I don't remember its name now.

HTH,
Paul
 
Paul said:
Would the computer be running the IDE interface in PIO
(polled I/O mode - CPU does the transfer) versus the
faster DMA mode (direct memory access) ? Check Device
Manager and see if there is something that says
"DMA If Available".

A disk run in PIO mode, will achieve about 4MB/sec transfer
rate, which is fast enough to do your 1.1x thing.

Sometimes, the reason you are in PIO mode, is because of
this. See the Workaround section of this article.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

I've also had a problem with Nero, that caused the whole
burning process to freeze. It turned out, I had a virtual
CD mounted at the same time I was burning. Disabling the
virtual CD mount returned things to normal. Whatever tool
I was using, had a control panel of its very own, so was
easy to spot - I don't remember its name now.

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information, I hadn't heard of this before.
Fortunately/Unfortunately, my IDE controllers are both running in Ultra DMA
mode. I sometimes mount virtual CDs, but it seems to make no difference. The
problems don't go away when I have no virtual CD software running.
 
"I.C. Koets" said:
Thanks for the information, I hadn't heard of this before.
Fortunately/Unfortunately, my IDE controllers are both running in Ultra DMA
mode. I sometimes mount virtual CDs, but it seems to make no difference. The
problems don't go away when I have no virtual CD software running.
Click to expand...

Time to visit:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/search/B/ (hardware reviews)
http://club.cdfreaks.com (user forums)

That is the best place to look for a solution.

Paul
 
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