Windows XP slooooow when burning DVD (using Nero/ Pioneer)

[xtrawidth]

Hi.

My kit is an Athlon 2400XP, 256mb, Windows XP and a Pioneer DVR-A06

Is it normal for me to be able to basically do nothing else on my computer whilst burning a DVD?

I checked to see it DMA was enabled as I read somewhere if PIO was activated, the CPU usage is way too high, but no, it was indeed using DMA.

It's as though my CPU is being maxed out. I thought I was supposed to be able to continue working whilst burning.

[shelbyGT]

you said you checked for DMA, you might want to double check. I had set mine to DMA if available, restarted, and it was still in PIO mode. To get it back to DMA I had to uninstall the primary IDE controller (could be secondary for you, just be sure when you do it). After hitting "uninstall" on device manager, you select "scan for hardware changes" and windows will reinstall it.

this worked for me... but just make sure that is whats wrong first.

[stvn]

Just another thought ....... Is the HD on the same IDE cable as the Pioneer AO6 ?

Have you also check the relevant web sites for your MoBo to see if youve got the latest IDE drivers ... ? or even an updated bios ???

Every box is diffrent and some have to be nurse maided into behaving

[Kingnog]

Well, are you burning at 4x? And do you have other programs running? Things definitely do slow down when im burning dvd's (with the gsa-4040b). you might want to try nero's 'cd/dvd speed' thing and see how much cpu the drive uses at different speeds.

[fslove]

Check Nero's setting and make sure you don't have Nero set to use most of your RAM for itself. 64MB should be plenty but if you only have 128 or less then Nero using even 64MB can slow things down a lot. As long as you have a fast HD you can set the memory usage to 32MB and be OK.

[xtrawidth]

ok answers.

no my drive is on the secondary ide cable (set to master). so it's independent to my hard drive.

it's definitely using DMA.

drivers etc are all up to date.

i am burning at 2x. it's a 4x drive though.

the suggestion of memory interests me. how can i change how much Nero is using?

[NYJabroni]

Check your task manager (cntrl-alt-delete) and see if there is a process hogging up your cpu. There might be something running in the background that your not aware of.

Try to disable any antivirus software while you burn. This might help too.

[fslove]

the suggestion of memory interests me. how can i change how much Nero is using?

Go into preferences to find the memory settings. I don;t remember the Nero 5 but on Nero 6 it's under the Ultrabuffer tab.

By the way how much RAM do you have?

[Gazorgan]

XP doesn't run well with 256 MB. It's an absolute RAM hog. 512 is a practical minimum.

Try this. Re-boot, then use task manager to check out how much RAM is avialable. Hard RAM, not virtual memory. You could also have a 'leaker'. That's a program that used RAM and didn't release it when exiting. Bittorrent is famous for still running after you close the client :P

[xtrawidth]

Yes I am running 256mb. So I probably ought to get more.

My work collegue said he has the same problem with his Sony Vaio, so i am wondering if there's actually nothing wrong with my pc, and it's just slow...

[Gazorgan]

I suspect with all the OEM Sony stuff installed, plus virus scanner et al your out of useable RAM. XP and 128 MB RAM is an excercise in Pain. 256 MB will run, but doing usefull things is hard. 384-512 is a good usable amount. 1024 is probably overkill, but RAM is cheap.

Use task manager and see what's running....

[geepondy]

This worked for me. I was just doing a search on this forum and about to ask the very same question. I had realized from looking at task manager in XP that Nero was using all of my available page memory in which I have 512meg installed in system. From advice from this thread I went into the Ultra Buffer preference (Nero 6) and unchecked automatic configuration and picked manual configuration and picked 64 meg as the buffer. Now everything is fine and it burns in the background and I can surf the web or whatever with no apparent decrease in speed although I haven't actually tried game playing while burning. Thanks for the advice, I hope my solution can help somebody.

[jeex]

this recently happened to me, except i was burning with recordnow max.. it puzzled me for the first few burns.. then i figured out it was because i installed an old-ish version of copytodvd.. it has something to do with the pautin-coffin something or another.. uninstalled copytodvd, got the drivers set correctly & everything was cooool afterwards