DVD-R Drive Problems..SLOW!

c0z420 · 03-15-2006, 01:54 PM

Ok when i start to burn a CDR or DVDR ...it just slows my system so far down that I cant even do anything while im burning them. Is this normal? It just sucks cuz i cant even browse the net to kill time inbetween burning stuff. I have a Dell GX270 machine with the regular Cd Drive on the top slot and a 8X DVD-RW burner drive underneith that which i placed in my computer last year. Its been an ongoing problem i just never checked into. Does this happen on anyone elses computer? I have 768 MBs of RAM...thats why this frustrates me so much...you'd think it wouldnt take that much system resources.....it did this when i only had 512MB in my machine as well.

c0z420 · 03-15-2006, 02:00 PM

I'm using NERO Express to burn also...if that makes any difference.

**please** · 03-16-2006, 07:44 AM

@ c0z420
You can check to make sure your DMA is enabled. In 'control panel>system>hardware>device manager' under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, double click on 'Primary IDE..>settings' and 'Secondary IDE...>settings' and see if the 'current transfer rate' is 'Ultra DMA Mode 2' or 'UDMA4' for your burners and UDMA5 or 6 for your HDDs. If it is not, then right click on 'Primary IDE channel' or whatever channel the drive is on, and choose 'uninstall', then reboot your computer. Windows will redetect your drive and reinstall your drivers. Hopefully it will restore the DMA level that is appropriate. Go back and check.

However, surfing or multi-tasking during a burn is not a great idea as your HDDs are in high usage and doing other tasks can cause buffer underruns and failed or corrupted burns or at least very slow burn times as you are seeing now. Defraggh\ing your source HDD will also help.

Normal burn times for a full disk are
DVD 4X=~14:00...8X=~10:00...12X~7:00...16X~6:00
CD...48X=~2:30...32X=~4:00

Keep us posted with your progress

~~whodat~~ · 03-16-2006, 10:44 AM

greetings

after you check what please advised-

also make sure there arent any yellow conflict alerts..take the same trail as please mentioned for the device manager route, and check off "show hidden devices" in the view tab.

i would also try and uninstall nero, temporarily, and see if your roms react better with windows media player.

do you have multiple burn progams installed? ie: music match, itunes et.?

lastly, how did you install these roms? where are they located on the ribbon daisy chain? are they ancient ribbon cables? and what are they jumpered as? also the firmware might need to be updated

post back

c0z420 · 03-16-2006, 11:50 AM

I'm at work right now but so i cant check my settings on the stuff, but....i havent gone in and checked the stuff Please told me about...i'lll try that. The problem is that burning a disk is taking forever for one thing and it just takes everything from my computer.....i mean i cant even play some mp3's or anything when i burn a cd cuz they skip and just freeze like mad...you'd think i'd at least to be able to listen to some mp3s that are located on a different hard drive at least.

As for the ribbons, the computer is about 2-3 years old and it was brand new when I got it. So the ribbons shouldnt be ancient or anything. The Regular cd rom drive is located on the main Cable of the cdrom and the 2nd one (DVD-RW) is 2nd in line of the chain. I thought it might be a jumper setting that might be causing the problem but wouldnt that cause an error in the bios if it were hooked up wrong? I'm pretty sure the DVD-RW drive is put at Cable select and the first is master.

Oh, I've tried burning with Windows and it seems to take forever too.

For the normal burn times

Normal burn times for a full disk are
DVD 4X=~14:00...8X=~10:00...12X~7:00...16X~6:00
CD...48X=~2:30...32X=~4:00

Mine is nowhere close to that.... it takes my friggin computer an HOUR or more to burn 1 dvd @ 8x speed, so i know theres something that is gotta be up with that. It takes at least 15-20 mins just to burn a CDR too.

~~whodat~~ · 03-16-2006, 12:16 PM

after the previous suggestions that were posted, you might want to put that dvd drive on as master. and as a stand alone to the mainboard for a trial run.
try it without the cd rom attached on the chain.
and flash the firmware from the manufactures homepage.
[and dont forget to uninstall any yellow conflict alerts]

c0z420 · 03-16-2006, 01:17 PM

I was actually thinking of doing that because i really dont use my top cd rom that much at all anyways, i just sometimes would burn disc to disc for cds but i havent done that in forever. Anyways, thanks alot for your help and im sure i'll be trying this stuff out this weekend!

c0z420 · 03-20-2006, 06:52 AM

Alright so I unplugged the main CD ROM drive and just plugged in the DVD drive and put it on the master Jumper settings and IT WORKED! I was going from an hour or more for burning DVDS to 10 mins. Thanks alot guys!

~~whodat~~ · 03-20-2006, 08:24 AM

glad to hear it

**please** · 03-21-2006, 07:01 PM

Nice call, whosdat

03-15-2006, 01:54 PM	#1 (permalink)
c0z420 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: iowa Posts: 118 OS: Windows XP	DVD-R Drive Problems..SLOW! Ok when i start to burn a CDR or DVDR ...it just slows my system so far down that I cant even do anything while im burning them. Is this normal? It just sucks cuz i cant even browse the net to kill time inbetween burning stuff. I have a Dell GX270 machine with the regular Cd Drive on the top slot and a 8X DVD-RW burner drive underneith that which i placed in my computer last year. Its been an ongoing problem i just never checked into. Does this happen on anyone elses computer? I have 768 MBs of RAM...thats why this frustrates me so much...you'd think it wouldnt take that much system resources.....it did this when i only had 512MB in my machine as well.

03-16-2006, 07:44 AM	#3 (permalink)
please TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 1,186 OS: WinXP SP2	@ c0z420 You can check to make sure your DMA is enabled. In 'control panel>system>hardware>device manager' under "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, double click on 'Primary IDE..>settings' and 'Secondary IDE...>settings' and see if the 'current transfer rate' is 'Ultra DMA Mode 2' or 'UDMA4' for your burners and UDMA5 or 6 for your HDDs. If it is not, then right click on 'Primary IDE channel' or whatever channel the drive is on, and choose 'uninstall', then reboot your computer. Windows will redetect your drive and reinstall your drivers. Hopefully it will restore the DMA level that is appropriate. Go back and check. However, surfing or multi-tasking during a burn is not a great idea as your HDDs are in high usage and doing other tasks can cause buffer underruns and failed or corrupted burns or at least very slow burn times as you are seeing now. Defraggh\ing your source HDD will also help. Normal burn times for a full disk are DVD 4X=~14:00...8X=~10:00...12X~7:00...16X~6:00 CD...48X=~2:30...32X=~4:00 Keep us posted with your progress __________________ P4P800E-D:~:P4 3.0C@3.75GHz:~:Zal7000AlCu:~:OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-K@250MHz 2.5-3-3-7 WinXP SP2>2X160GB Samsung SATA ICH5R RAID1:~:2x80GB Samsung SATA Promise RAID0 ATI A-I-W X800XT~SB Audigy2 ZS~2X BenQ1620~Antec SLK3700AMB~Antec SmartPower2.0 500W Last edited by please; 03-16-2006 at 07:46 AM.

03-16-2006, 10:44 AM	#4 (permalink)
~~whodat~~ Register user Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 5,931 OS: XP	greetings after you check what please advised- also make sure there arent any yellow conflict alerts..take the same trail as please mentioned for the device manager route, and check off "show hidden devices" in the view tab. i would also try and uninstall nero, temporarily, and see if your roms react better with windows media player. do you have multiple burn progams installed? ie: music match, itunes et.? lastly, how did you install these roms? where are they located on the ribbon daisy chain? are they ancient ribbon cables? and what are they jumpered as? also the firmware might need to be updated post back Last edited by whodat; 03-16-2006 at 10:46 AM.

03-16-2006, 12:16 PM	#6 (permalink)
~~whodat~~ Register user Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 5,931 OS: XP	after the previous suggestions that were posted, you might want to put that dvd drive on as master. and as a stand alone to the mainboard for a trial run. try it without the cd rom attached on the chain. and flash the firmware from the manufactures homepage. [and dont forget to uninstall any yellow conflict alerts] Last edited by whodat; 03-16-2006 at 12:32 PM.

03-21-2006, 07:01 PM	#10 (permalink)
please TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 1,186 OS: WinXP SP2	Nice call, whosdat __________________ P4P800E-D:~:P4 3.0C@3.75GHz:~:Zal7000AlCu:~:OCZ4001024ELDCPER2-K@250MHz 2.5-3-3-7 WinXP SP2>2X160GB Samsung SATA ICH5R RAID1:~:2x80GB Samsung SATA Promise RAID0 ATI A-I-W X800XT~SB Audigy2 ZS~2X BenQ1620~Antec SLK3700AMB~Antec SmartPower2.0 500W Last edited by please; 03-21-2006 at 07:04 PM.

03-15-2006, 02:00 PM	#2 (permalink)
c0z420 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: iowa Posts: 118 OS: Windows XP	I'm using NERO Express to burn also...if that makes any difference.

03-16-2006, 11:50 AM	#5 (permalink)
c0z420 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: iowa Posts: 118 OS: Windows XP	I'm at work right now but so i cant check my settings on the stuff, but....i havent gone in and checked the stuff Please told me about...i'lll try that. The problem is that burning a disk is taking forever for one thing and it just takes everything from my computer.....i mean i cant even play some mp3's or anything when i burn a cd cuz they skip and just freeze like mad...you'd think i'd at least to be able to listen to some mp3s that are located on a different hard drive at least. As for the ribbons, the computer is about 2-3 years old and it was brand new when I got it. So the ribbons shouldnt be ancient or anything. The Regular cd rom drive is located on the main Cable of the cdrom and the 2nd one (DVD-RW) is 2nd in line of the chain. I thought it might be a jumper setting that might be causing the problem but wouldnt that cause an error in the bios if it were hooked up wrong? I'm pretty sure the DVD-RW drive is put at Cable select and the first is master. Oh, I've tried burning with Windows and it seems to take forever too. For the normal burn times Normal burn times for a full disk are DVD 4X=~14:00...8X=~10:00...12X~7:00...16X~6:00 CD...48X=~2:30...32X=~4:00 Mine is nowhere close to that.... it takes my friggin computer an HOUR or more to burn 1 dvd @ 8x speed, so i know theres something that is gotta be up with that. It takes at least 15-20 mins just to burn a CDR too.

03-16-2006, 01:17 PM	#7 (permalink)
c0z420 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: iowa Posts: 118 OS: Windows XP	I was actually thinking of doing that because i really dont use my top cd rom that much at all anyways, i just sometimes would burn disc to disc for cds but i havent done that in forever. Anyways, thanks alot for your help and im sure i'll be trying this stuff out this weekend!

03-20-2006, 06:52 AM	#8 (permalink)
c0z420 Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: iowa Posts: 118 OS: Windows XP	Alright so I unplugged the main CD ROM drive and just plugged in the DVD drive and put it on the master Jumper settings and IT WORKED! I was going from an hour or more for burning DVDS to 10 mins. Thanks alot guys!

03-20-2006, 08:24 AM	#9 (permalink)
~~whodat~~ Register user Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 5,931 OS: XP	glad to hear it