DRX 500UL burn speed

[greytop1]

Could somebody please help ?

I have been using DVD Decryptor 3.1.4 and when i burn an image to a DVD the speed never gets above X0.7.
Anyone have any ideas of why this is happening?

System.
athlon 1400 on abit kt7
512mb ram
ultraplex 40x scsi cd reader
scsi plexwriter 12/4/32
lite-on 16X dvd reader (ide)
msi 48X cd re-writer (ide)
Sony DRX-500UL DVD re-writer on USB
Superior dvd 2x generation 4 media
Windows XP PRO.

any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!

[kitty]

Is the USB port USB 2.0? You need the speed of 2.0 to get decent read/write speeds.

[greytop1]

mmmm , good question . is there any way i can check?

what is firewire like in comparison with usb - in terms of speed?

[kitty]

Firewire is a hair slower than USB2. I can't seem to find a way of detecting port speed - maybe some knows...

Cards for firewire or USB2 or combo cards are fairly cheap.

[donpedro]

Try search for "SiSoftware Sandra". You should be able to get that info with this software.

And what about Ultra DMA for drive ? Is it enabled ?

[kitty]

UltraDMA on a USB port?

[donpedro]

Oops !

[EZMD]

I'm having the same problem. I have USB 2 and Firewire. Doesnt matter which one I use. Happens with Nero as well as Record Now. DVDs made with the drive work fine but take almost 2-2.5 hours to burn. Firmware is 1.0f. Buffer level stays around 10-15% and seems to bounce around a little. The drive light flashes on and off ... sometimes in a pattern of every few seconds then it's out of pattern.

I've tested the USB2 and Firewire with hard drives and transfer speeds are fine. Burning CD's seem to have the same problem as well. I suspect the drive is not getting enough data and the underrun protection is being activated.

Anyone else encounter this. I may need to try reflashing the drive. It did this with 1.0d firmware too. I havent tried it on another computer yet.... maybe tomorrow.

[Crash-n-Burn]

I get the same problem, it takes forever. But i'm not burning through a usb 2.0 or firewire. I couldent figure out why it was burning so slow

[SonyUser]

See this post via the link below and see if you have the same problem !

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=8229

[greytop1]

well boys you certainly done the trick!!!!!!

i bought a hi-speed usb 2.0 port (belkin) from PC World and guess what.....
my drive now goes like the wind!!!!

on dvd decryptor using the sony dvd+rw disk that came with the drive
i was getting a speed of X2.6.

ONLY THING IS MY MACHINE WONT BOOT WITH MY USB ADSL MODEM PLUGGED IN ! but once XP has loaded i can plug it in without a prob.

any ideas why?

[EZMD]

Does the drive light stay on or is it supposed to flash? Still not sure what my problem is. USB2 and Firewire burn at like .7x I've run both firewire hard drives and usb2 drives on the ports and they work just fine.

Anyone else seen this or have any other ideas as far as testing. Drive otherwise seems to work fine so I'm not inclined to think it's failing.

[kitty]

The burn light on the sony drives does go on & off while burning. It seems to be an orangeish color during both burn & read activity (some CD-RW drives use LEDs with different colors for read & burn).

[EZMD]

Interestingly I turned off Roxio Direct CD (ctl-alt Del) in Windows XP and so far so good. Burned a 700 Mb Cd in about 4.5 min (my liteon 24 x does it a bit faster but I didnt get the drive to burn CD's anyway). Currently burning a DVD with Accu 1x media and it seems on track for a 30 min burn (2x). Not sure if the DirectCD was the problem or not. I also turned off a 16x Firewire drive I had hooked up for testing purposes.

Hopefully that was my problem.

[donpedro]

It is highly possible. When I was trying to install my Sony, I had Nero's InCD installed. It (instalation) didn't work until I uninstalled InCD. It looks like this burnere doesn't like ... how do you call them ? .... InCD or Direct CD or anything that belongs to that category.

[kitty]

Yes - any of the "turn your drive into a drive letter" software should be disabled or removed prior to changes in drives.

I found a problem that I had - that pesky Intel Application Accelerator program was installed. I uninstalled that and I got my DMA settings!

[EZMD]

I'm thinking now this may be a Nero .17 problem. My main PC has that version and the buffer goes up and down.... this was somewhat fixed by disabling Direct CD but instead of a true 2x burn it was more like a 1.7.

I hooked my burner to the USB2 port of a PII 333 that has an "older" version of Nero installed. It too has Direct CD which I left installed and running. Very clean 2x and the buffer remained at 97%. The files were being read over the network from my main PC so I'm sure it's not the drive, not my hard drive, and not Direct CD. I checked the "older" version and was suprised to see it's .17 also.

Now I'm really scratching my head. The main PC's USB 2 and firewire both have the problem and they are 2 different cards. Problem somewhat fixed with disabling Direct CD. Got to be a setting somewhere.

I'll likely just leave it attached to my 333.... it'll burn over the network just fine so no worries.

I'm just happy as all get out it's not my Sony that's the problem.