Burner Problem involving speeds

[Spirit Crusher]

Hello everyone, hopefully someone can shed some light on this...

I bought a LG GSA 4166B back in November. I installed it as device one on the primary IDE channel, my system drive was the slave to that, then on the other IDE channel is another hard drive. I did this so I can capture video and burn from my big storage drive, because it couldn't access information fast enough when the 2 drives were slaved..

anyway, all was working fine. I was backing up dvds, and making my own dvds. Probably burned 150 with no problems. A full dvd would burn in about 7 minutes. Then one day, for some reason, it was taking 14 minutes. I had gotten new discs ( -r's instead fof +r's), so I figured this was the reason. It didn't really bother me all to much. Then, I went to burn another disc, and it took over 3 hours. And now, im lucky if I reach 2x speed. All the settings are the same, Dvd Decrypter is set on MAX speed.

I checked to make sure DMA was enabled, and it is. I asked the guys at bestbuy, and they told me the drive was going, so I should send it back as soon as possible. When I called LG, they told me it was a problem with my computer, not the drive, and hung up on me...

So maybe one of you could help me. Im desperate !

[redwudz]

If DMA is enabled that rules out the most common cause. I wouldn't have set my boot drive as slave as that may cause other problems with the OS, but probably has nothing to do with this one. If it just slowed down without any hardware changes, then were there any software changes when that happened?

You might try doing a Restore to a date before the change to see if that helps. I would also try some different media, just in case that has anything to do with it, but that's unlikely. Lastly, try a different burning program, such as IMGBurn as Decrypter may have a problem with newer drives.

Other than that above, it's sounds like a problem with the burner. You might try cleaning the laser lens, but a dirty lens will usually causes CRC errors, not slow downs. That seems to narrow it down to a failing burner as the most likely explanation. If you had another computer to try it in, that would likely confirm it.

[jameshgross]

I would tend to believe the LG people.
Some things to try:
Run ADAWARE and SPYBOT to check for spyware.
Run you AV program scan to check for viruses.
Run a disk defragmenter.
Check the boot up system test to make sure that all the ram is being used.
Run CHKDISK at bootup to look for HD problems.
Run Belarc Adviser to see just what the computer thinks it has.
If the problem presists then run hijackthis and post the results on the TechSupport Guy web site. An expert will analyize the results.
Remember, an hour of analysis is worth days of shotgun troubleshooting.

[Spirit Crusher]

ok...update.... I had done all of those, and there were no software changes.. and when I did a restore to back in february, it said there were no changes to the system so it couldn't go back.

but, I tried the thing with the registry ( I was kinda scared at first cause I didn't want to screw my whole system up ), and now its working nicely again...I mean, its still taking twice as long as before, but Im to belive is the media...either way, 15 minutes is better than hours, so next time I'll just be sure to get the original discs I had...

does anyone know what happens with the registry, or what caused it...

[Krispy Kritter]

I'm not sure what you did to the registry, so I can't comment on that. Many drives burn + and - media at different speeds. However, you may want to see if there is new firmware for your drive. Newer firmware will support new(er) media and may increase your burn speeds.

[Spirit Crusher]

this is what I did.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Class\{4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\000X

Where 000X corresponds to the various drives on your IDE bus. Likely, 0000 will be your primary hard drive,but who knows (or cares). IN each 000X key, look for "MasterIdDataCheckSum" or "SlaveIdDataCheckSum". If you see either one or both of these right-click on them and delete them. A dialog will pop up asking you to confirm the Deleteion. Click OK. Do this for each drive 000X. Restart when done.



and I have to keep doing it like every 2 days because it keeps getting slow again. and LG doesn't even carry info or firmware for this model on their site. How stupid is that.

[OneSickPup]

...

and I have to keep doing it like every 2 days because it keeps getting slow again. and LG doesn't even carry info or firmware for this model on their site. How stupid is that.

Sounds like you have a defective ide cable - bad connection - bent/broken pins or possibly a bad drive. If it were me I would try changing the ide cable.

Here is some info on your drive:

review: http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/262
FAQ: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=168082
Owners Manual/Firmware/etc: http://us.lgservice.com (go to Product support section)