Mr.Scaleo

I have been burning isos with imageburn using verbatim 4x DVD+RW. I have set to 4x but the rated speed has been maximum of 1.7x. Why is that. It has been like this for a while. What is holding the speed up? Could it be a cable master/slave issue?

Tyree

That's about the right speed for a DVDRW. I "think" BenQ still makes Phillips optical drives. A Firmware update "may" improve the write speeds, but I doubt it.

Mr.Scaleo

Thanks Tyree but I did a firmware update a while back. I had some I/O error problem writting certain isos. But the update solved the issue. I think I moved from version 1.7 to 2.0. I think my drive is old and was already going out at the time I bought it. So I doubt it would be even newer firmware updates. I don't know even where to look this time.
What do you think might hold the speed up? Is this a common problem?

Tyree

1.7X burn speed is not at all uncommon for 4X media.

Mr.Scaleo

Ok then I need to make another question. So it's safe to say that the media could be the issue? Meaning if you got media like low quality DVD+R or something like that, could this be something common to happen?

koala

If the DVD drive is IDE and setup as a slave on the same cable as the hard drive you're burning from, try setting it as a master on its own cable.

Have you defragged the hard drive, and is there at least 15% free space?

If your burning software has the option to 'prevent buffer underruns', enable it.

Does it allow you to set the burn speed to x8?

Do you get the same slow speed when burning DVDRs (not RWs)?

If you were using cheap x2 DVDRWs, that could explain the slow speed, but Verbatim x4 discs should be burning between x2 and x4.

Alternative freeware:
Free ISO Burner
ISO Image Burner
Free Easy CD DVD Burner

Mr.Scaleo

Thanks koala your thoughts seem very good...
It was actually alone on the IDE cable but I will check if the jumper setting is correct. My partition was only half used meaning I had about 10GB free space. I searched for the; option to 'prevent buffer underruns' in nero 6.0 and newest imageburn but I couldn't find it. I think you can choose 8X. Would that help? As I recall the slow burning has been there on DVD+R too.
The DVDRWs are only verbatim but the cheap stuff is actually my DVD+Rs.
Could it be another I/O problem? Interface like ASPI ASAPI SPTI. Wrong setting here?

koala

Setting the burning speed to x8 will make the software try to get close to x8 speed. It might not reach it, but should be quicker than trying to burn at x4.

Go to the Start > All Programs > Nero. There should be a folder called Nero Toolkit. Run Nero CD-DVD Speed (CDSpeed.exe) from there. It will test the drive to find its maximum burning speed and create a report showing any problems.

Check in Device Manager to make sure DMA is enabled for the DVD drive.

Start > Control Panel > System > Hardware tab > Device Manager button > IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers > double-click Primary IDE Channel > Advanced Settings tab. The Transfer Mode should be set to 'DMA if available'. If it's not, set it, then reboot and check the setting again to make sure it hasn't reverted to PIO Mode.

Repeat for Secondary IDE Channel if necessary.

If it's an old drive and you want to replace it, you can get a good quality IDE (or SATA if you have a spare port) for about $30US.