8x burner fails on anything above 2.4x

[akrein62]

I have a NU Tech DDW-081 8x DVD+R/RW drive and I can not write dvd+r faster than 2.4x. I have upgraded firmware to BX30 and I am using Memorex 4x dvd+r (CMC discs). According to my burning software, dvddecrypter burning iso mode, and NU Tech's compatibility list, I should be able to burn
at 8x. Every attempt to burn at 8x has failed. The burn starts at 2x and
then after a short time, the drive tries to increase the burn to 8x and I
instantly get an I/O error and the disc is ruined. When I manually set
the burn speed to 4x, it will only burn at 2x, but the burn is sucessful.

How can I get my DDW-081 to burn faster?

My system is Windows 98SE, Celeron 1.4GHz, 384MB RAM, the DDW-081 is connected as master on the secondary IDE channel of a Promise ATA100 IDE card. I have 2 hard drives connected to the primary IDE channel of the Promise card and a cd burner and dvd-rom connected to the secondary IDE channel of the mother board.

Thank you,

Andy

[jester1x]

More than likely, it's not your burner. Memorex discs aren't the greatest quality either. CMC is one of the worst dyes I believe.

Anyways...I burned some 4x Memorex DVD-Rs for a coworker about a week ago and one of them took close to an hour to finish burning versus the typical twenty minutes or so. Apparently, the quality of the discs isn't consistent.

Try another brand of media besides Memorex, then you will know whether the problem rests with the media or the burner.

[frankb]

Hi,

In my experience (with "only" a 4-speed burner) it's definitely the media. I use Nero 5.5.x.x for burning and on cheaper DVD-Rs (which alledgedly should burn at 4-speed) it will not allow me to select anything higher than 2speed. On the Princo DVD-Rs (4-speed), however, I can select 4-speed (and it will actually burn at that speed).

So check out some other media (e.g. using the "DVD Media" list on the left.

[akrein62]

I've mostly solved the problem. I moved the dvd burner from the Promise IDE card to the motherboard IDE connection. The Nu Tech will now burn the CMC Mag source Memorex 4x +R at 6x now. Perhaps better media will now burn at a full 8x. I'll try that next. This burner will now also burn cdr at 40x, where before it was significanty slowr than my TDK 24x cd burner.

So, as suggested above, the problem was not the burner, but a combination of connection and, maybe, media.

Thanks.