Is my external burner dieing?

[primus_fan2001]

Hey all I've got an external USB2 Lite-On SHW-1635SX burner that I've had since about December of 2005. Well, over the last week of so whenever I try burning edited video to DVD, the burner only burns at 6X (even though the burner, along with the discs I'm using, are 16X). And before someone says it, I have the program set to burn at 16X. Is there anything I can do to check and see if my burner is on its deathbed?

BTW, I burn using the latest version of IMGburn.

[Dr. DOS]

I'm guessing your drives firmware doesn't recognize the media code on the DVD and is burning at 6x as a backup speed. Have you ever burned those exact same disks at 16x in the past?

[primus_fan2001]

I'm guessing your drives firmware doesn't recognize the media code on the DVD and is burning at 6x as a backup speed. Have you ever burned those exact same disks at 16x in the past?

Yes. BTW, they're these:

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.php?selectmedia=3192#comments

And I have the latest firmware as well (which itself hasn't had an update since like July).

[redwudz]

Two possibilities come to mind. Your media may not be the same. Media can change in quality, even sometimes within a batch. One way to check would be to try a different compatible brand of DVDs.

Or your burner may be having problems. You could check this by burning one of your present discs on a different computer and burner and see what speed it uses.

But if your discs are burning properly without errors, even though slower, I wouldn't replace it just yet.

[gslrider]

I'm having the same issues with my internal NEC 3550A and LG GSA-H10N. I've updated the firmware for each to the most currrent. But at 16x burn, I'm only getting up to 8x on the first 35 sec of burning then starts to drop down and settle at about 5x. I've used Maxell, Fuji, Imation, Sony, and Philips 16x media. And all are testing at that speed.

I've tested the burn speed on these drives using Toast 8, and MBBench (Mac). My older Mac G4 had the same NEC 3550A, and it burned at a much faster rate. That's how I first noticed the slower speed on these drives.

Using Toast to test time on burning. On the older G4 it would take about 3.5 - 4 min to burn a full 4GB DVD at 16x. The burners on my new G4 says it will take about 4 min, but actually takes about 10 min.

But ripping a full 4GB DVD, burning CD-R at 48x, and reading DVDs is all within normal parameters. And I don't think I've ever had a bad burn (maybe one) under "16x" burn option.

I'm wondering if all 16x burner doesn't officially burn at 16x. Maybe 8x. I've also read from this topic <https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=308847> about DMA and PIO switches. No clue what those are, but what they discussed made sense. Just wondering how I can switch from PIO to DMA on a Mac.