problem with cpu drainage

[Rud]

Ok, im having a problem with my writer (pioneer dvd-106d)....whenever i write a dvd, or even read from one..it uses up all my cpu power...which it shouldnt coz i have ample cpu power. This causes my system to become very sluggish and the cd takes ages to write.

I currently have my writer on my secondary ide and a second hard drive on my promise port. if i swap these two around; it solves the problem but only for so long, after a few writes...it starts sucking up all my cpu power again....which means i then need to swap them over again.

ive tried updating my firmware and still no luck, its not sharing any irq's and ive checked its set to dma.

its probably got nothing to do with the writer but the system itself but hopefully someone can help. :P

[budz]

Just a suggestion for you go to this website for help for your hardware problem.
http://duxcw.com/yabbse/index.php

[fslove]

It sounds like you have your DVD burner set to PIO mode instead of DMA mode (which is the proper mode for a DVD burner). Also, you should have your burner as a master on whatever IDE chain it is hooked up to. If you have two HD's and 2 DVD Burner & ROM(or CD), I would place the second HD as a slave to the boot HD and then put the DVD burner as a master to the DVD-ROM (or CD).

[Rud]

yeah the writer is by itself on the via secondary, set as master. plus, the controller is set to use 'dma if available'...using mode 2.

[fslove]

yeah the writer is by itself on the via secondary, set as master. plus, the controller is set to use 'dma if available'...using mode 2.

Have you verified with your OS that it is indeed in DMA mode? Even if you set your controller card (whether onboard MB or a addon card) the OS can drop it down to PIO mode if it experieces problems (WinXP does so after something like 6 errors).

[Rud]

This is what my OS says:

http://www.rud.nildram.co.uk/dma.JPG