HP lightscribe player won't burn fast anymore.

[butt_crack]

I have a compaq desktop w/ the HP lightscribe player won't burn fast anymore.

It is the HP 740b burner. It used to burn all media at 16x,now whatever I throw at it, my nero says 4x max speed. what gives??

Is my burner dieing?

[redwudz]

First thing to check: Is it still in DMA mode?

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel the drive is on and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot. This will not damage any files on the computer.

I'll assume you have tried more than one burning program? Occasionally it's a problem with the burning software, but this is not common.

Next step is to try different DVD media. If you have already done that and you are absolutely sure the media isn't the problem, then next is to try cleaning the laser lens. I could suggest a firmware upgrade, but that is usually only needed if you have changed media and you are having problems.

If all this fails, and you have made no other major changes in the hardware or the software in the computer that could be related, consider replacing the burner.