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View Full Version : slooooooowwwww burn times


welshboy
08-25-2002, 08:06 PM
Hello all, been a while since my last post - all was well with my machine after the previous upgrades and everything is to a point.....

The story so far....
I have upgraded my machine from an old 166MMX to a 1.2Ghz Athlon with 256MB RAM. I have replaced the sound card and gfx cards and have recently replaced the HD and gone "broadband".

I thought that now would be good time to get a CD-RW drive as we now have significant quantities of mp3's and other assorted data that I would prefer not to be clogging up the HD. I bought an LG GCE-8320b 32x10x40x for £50 from a new store in Cardiff and I have to say it is not exactly living up to expectations....

I have burnt a few CD's worth of mp3's and copied one or two other discs and I was suprised at how long they take. I'm currently averaging aroung 15-20 minutes per disc. My sisters boyfriend is able to perform the same operations in less than 5!! Admitedly he is running a 2Ghz P4 :p with a 40x12x40x drive but I wouldnt expect mine to be so slow.

One thing I have noticed is that when burning, the drive appears to operate in short bursts as if it is having to wait for data. The percentage bar will jump up 3-5% and stop, then jump up a few more. This is the same be it copying CD's or burning mp3's directly from the HD. I realise that there is a buffering system involved but the drive is supposed to be burning at around 5000-6000Kb per second. This is obviously not the case as it is taking at least 20 minutes to burn several hundred Mb of Data.

It has been suggested that I check my jumper and cable settings which I have done and they all look kosher to me - 2 HD's on Master with a CD-ROM and CD-RW on Secondary. All devices are correctly set for their master or slave positions. For your info the CD-RW is Secondary slave.

I have tried a few different burning apps and they have not made any difference which leads me to ask - WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON??????
Have I bought a naff burner??? Is my system too slow?? or are there possible solutions I am as yet unaware of???? Any help, as usual, would be greatly appreciated :D

jabarnutcase
08-25-2002, 08:39 PM
Hi welshboy-
Your system is definately not too slow.
I have a 1Ggig athlon and an older 12x10x32 burner thats burning a typical CD in 6 or 7 minutes.
I'm not sure what your documentation said, but mine specifically said to make the cd-rw the master and the cd-rom the slave when both are on the same (secondary) IDE channel..As mine are. (I don't know how much of a difference it would make, as I never tried it the other way around)

Are you running a lot of other stuff when you're burning a CD? Also, in some cases, enabling DMA may or may not help to solve the problem but I know it has for some other people. Certainly, even if DMA is not enabled on your burner, be sure that it is on your hard drive.
You didn't mention what OS you are using. 256MB of Ram is good, but (in my opinion)XP likes a little more!
Hang in there because, as always...More replies will be along!

ranchdog
08-25-2002, 09:55 PM
.... to burn several hundred Mb of data.

All in all we have to consider that is
a lot of data.

Does your software give you a choice of
burn speed such as 4x or 8x etc. etc?

It sounds as tho you have a burn-proof
unit and the software is governing the burn
speed so that you don't make coasters. Due
to buffer under-run.


RD.

Fruss Tray Ted
08-26-2002, 12:55 AM
Also is your software writing to HDD then to disk? As long as you don't start getting coasters, try setting it to burn directly to disk. this will save some time