At Wits End

[boldego]

My computer is working fine except for one problem. I can rip a DVD in about 12 minutes. I can burn from the hard drive and never get under 96% in the buffer. I cannot however copy a CD from my DVD to my burner. It acts like the DVD quits sending data. Info on computer:

OS Windows 98SE
Burn Soft Roxio 5.0 platinum
Main Board ECS K7S5A with the Sis 735 chipset
Bios AMI 7.00T
Hard Drive WD 40gig 7200
DVD Pioneer DVD-116
Burner HP9100i
Memory 512 DDR
Video Radeon 7000
Primary IDE Hard Drive (FIFO) driver Windows 4-23-1999
Secondary DVD Master CD-rw Slave (fifo) windows 4-23-1999
Bus Master Ide SIS driver SIS

I have tried the windows driver for the bus master but it was worse. I hope someone has some suggestions or I'll have to throw a computer smashing party!!!! Thanks

[sue denim]

Hi !
Did someone say 'Party'???!!!!

Tried everything .... run out of ideas ..... Don't ya just hate it when that happens?
I'll try and help ........

You did a pretty good job in listing your setup! There's just a couple of things more that would be useful .....
- What burning software r u using to copy 'on-the-fly'?
- What Athlon proc. u got ?

One thing does spring to mind. Have you got DMA ticked in the device manager for your DVD-Rom drive?
This could help re-sync the data flow from the drive with whatever the destination is (in this case your CDR).

Let me know how u get on ......

Sue xxx

[boldego]

Hey Sue Denim,

The processor is the AMD 1600XP and I am using Roxio 5.0 Platinum as the burning software. I have the DMA ticked on all drives. Have you ever been to a computer smashing party???

[sue denim]

Couldn't really call it a 'party' but a few of us at work certainly squashed some old IBMs a few months ago!

Never used Roxio ...... never even heard of it before actually!!

Fancy trying a different piece of software? Like Nero5 or EZCD deluxe??

Have you got 'Auto Insert Notification' switched off on all your CD drives?
If not, WHY NOT! It's just a huge pain....

er ..... I'll keep on thinking about it ...... be with you in a while ..... !

Sue xxx

[boldego]

I have autoinsert notification ticked but also have it on other computers and have had no problems with it. I will untick it and check to see if it makes a difference though.

[RaleighNC]

have you speed tested your cd drives?? sometimes roxio needs to test the transfer rate of the drives before doinga cd 2 cd copy.

[agzz]

Roxio is EZCD.

[RaleighNC]

Have you got 'Auto Insert Notification' switched off on all your CD drives?
If not, WHY NOT! It's just a huge pain....

a hugh pain .... because auto insertion takes away resources (cpu cycles) to poll/cache the cdrom for disc changes. u don't want that on when burning a disc.

[rbruder]

Hei,

why u dont't try to separate both DVD and CD-recorder in diferents IDE?

Two dispositives in the same IDE channel is the cause because the machine can't maintaing speed at maximum.

I suggest:

IDE 1
-> HD
-> DVD

IDE 2
-> CD-R

[boldego]

I'll try turning off the auto insert and if that helps. I'll let all know.

[boldego]

rb ruder,

I'll try your suggestion as a last resort. I really didn't want anything else on the same IDE as my hard drive

[rbruder]

I know.

It's a hard decision to make...

U've to measure by your uses. Nero advise if the two drives is in the same IDE Channel. Sharing the IDE with the DVD can slow the HD performance, but i suggest u to get a benchmark programa to monitor the diference between the two situations.

Sorry, my english is only to survive...

[boldego]

I unticked the auto insert notification but it didn't help. Open to all suggestions.

[sue denim]

Only a couple more suggestions from me .......

1) Click the 'sync data transfer' box - it may work or it may make things a bit worse but, hey, try it!

2) Use Nero like (nearly) everybody else!

If I have a brainstorm I'll let u know .....

Sue xxx

[boldego]

OK Sue let me know if you think of anything. I'm going to change the IDE cable just to see if that might be the problem. Don't get a headache brainstorming!!

[boldego]

Well changing the cable didn't work. I'm thinking ...smell the smoke.

[sayler]

Had the exact same problem when both burner and hard drive were on the same IDE cable. When I moved burner to different cable problem went away.

[boldego]

Thanks Sayler. I'll make the move this weekend. I was trying to avoid putting a slave with the hard drive but it looks like I have no choice. I've tried everything.

[sue denim]

Yeah, I think Slayer's right ya know.
OK, so your IDE buss may get a little more busy and slow down. But with the combination of that Elite mainboard and ATA-100 drives, I really don't think you'll notice any speed difference.
Even a benchmark test would struggle to find an average deterioration in your HDD performance.

Let us know how you get on mate .......

Sue xxx

[boldego]

I'm going to have to change my pin selection on my hard drive from single to master and add either the burner or the DVD as slave to it. I've got really good rip times right now. I was wondering if it would be alright to put the burner as the slave. Also, am I going to have to reformatt?

[sue denim]

Hi again!
Putting your burner as an IDE slave is not recommended due to the amount of interupts you can get on the buss.
However, if your burner's internal ram buffer is quite high (say 4-8Mb) then you may never run into buffer-underuns.
What's to lose anyhow? Try it!

And no, you're not going to have to reformat your drives. As long as you get the jumpers right at the back, you'll be laughing

Good luck ...... Sue xxx

[boldego]

I think you're right Sue. Roberto earlier said the it would be better to put the DVD with the HD also. You don't make coasters with a DVD Rom. Thanks everyone. I'll let you know if it worked or if I threw my computer out the window.

[boldego]

Update....... couldn't make the switch. The configuration of the MB and the case wouldn't let me get the hard drive and the DVD Rom close enough. That motherboard is really hard to work with. Looks like I'll have to buy a burner for my son's computer...maybe a plextor. Thanks to all for you help and time.