burner too slow

[birdcat]

K, so I had a toshiba dvd burner that worked flawlessly. I installed a usb hub in the floppy bay, that connects to my usb card. Immediately after, I tried burning a near full disc at 4x (the Toshiba was supposed to burn at 8x, but never did), and it took over an hour. Second burn with near the same amount of data at the same speed took just as long. Tired of 4x anyway, I bought a new burner, an ASUS DRW-1814BL, capable of burning up to 16x. Damn thing still wont work right, tried 16x, then 8x. Its still burning slow as hell. I even replaced the IDE cable with a new one I never used.

Ive already checked and its in DMA mode, so thats not it. I use Memorex media, never had a problem with their media. Ever. This latest batch is reported as Class 2 media anyway. Oh, and im relatively sure the jumper settings are correct. (left the jumper out the first run, then switched to master)

Im at a loss here. Is the motherboard dieing? I just want the damn thing to work already.

[oldandinthe way]

Is your IDE cable 80 wire? If not replace with 80 wire.

Check your power supply.

And of course you should explore whether your software is working properly.

[birdcat]

forgive the ignorance, but how do i check it? and what am i checking for?

[aedipuss]

the ide cable either has 40 wires or 80 tiny ones. count the bumps in the flat cable. newer drive use 80 to achieve less signal loss and higher speeds.

[jman98]

It sounds suspiciously to me like a PIO issue where your drive is in PIO mode. The kind of operation you did (added a device) can sometimes be enough to put it into PIO mode, but you say it's in DMA mode. I can tell you from personal experience that XP most definitely can reset a working DMA drive into PIO mode without you knowing it.

Agree with checking the cable. And by the way, Memorex media is the biggest piece of $#%& DVD media I have ever purchased, hands down, but that's probably not causing the results you see.

Finally, I suppose it's possible that your IDE cable might be one of those used for "cable select" mode and your jumpers might be set wrong for that. I have no idea what kind of issues that could cause. I just throw it out as a possibility.

[birdcat]

EDIT 2: I meant checking the power supply not the cables. how do i check the ps, and what am i looking for.

Well, decided to buy a new power supply. Been having a few other problems so, they may all be related. Made sure to find one that was modular and had higher voltage than the current ps. Also, about the IDE cables. I was looking at the round cables in hopes of clearing some room (i hate these flat cables, always get tangled and twisted to fit in certain spots, clutters things up) but the specs on newegg dont mention anything bout 40 or 80 wires. That going to be a problem?


EDIT 1: Oh, and upon checking again, XP reports the transfer mode for the secondary ide channel is Ultra DMA Mode 4. Also, the cable I replaced was a 40 pin. So maybe that was why I could only burn at 4x with my older burner. However I dont see how it could explain being able to burn 4+gigs at 4x in 15 to 25 minutes one day, and doing the same in 1 hour and 27 minutes the next day.

[redwudz]

Most round cables are 80 conductor, at least if you use good quality ones. The cheap ones aren't so well made and may be less quality than most flat cables.

You say your drive is in DMA mode. Which DMA mode? It should be 2 - 4 for most optical drives. And you should know that Windows sometimes misreads the DMA/PIO mode of a drive. I would uninstall the channel the drive is on, reboot and make sure it's set to the proper DMA mode.

BTW, one easy way to tell a 40 conductor cable from a 80 conductor cable is to look at a floppy drive cable. That's the wire size (diameter) of a 40 conductor cable. Floppy cables just have fewer conductors. Or you could count them.

Probably a good idea to replace your PS is it undersized/underpowered.

[birdcat]

EDIT 2: I meant checking the power supply not the cables. how do i check the ps, and what am i looking for.

Well, decided to buy a new power supply. Been having a few other problems so, they may all be related. Made sure to find one that was modular and had higher voltage than the current ps. Also, about the IDE cables. I was looking at the round cables in hopes of clearing some room (i hate these flat cables, always get tangled and twisted to fit in certain spots, clutters things up) but the specs on newegg dont mention anything bout 40 or 80 wires. That going to be a problem?


EDIT 1: Oh, and upon checking again, XP reports the transfer mode for the secondary ide channel is Ultra DMA Mode 4. Also, the cable I replaced was a 40 pin. So maybe that was why I could only burn at 4x with my older burner. However I dont see how it could explain being able to burn 4+gigs at 4x in 15 to 25 minutes one day, and doing the same in 1 hour and 27 minutes the next day.

Ill have to try uninstalling the channel when i get off work later. As for the PS. its 350w, ive had issues before with the system informing me about some power issue with the monitor, but I never noticed anything different. Oh well.

[redwudz]

I must have missed that post. But it is sounding like a power supply problem. Or something else.

I've never found a simple way to check power supplies. There are testers, but they would have to put the proper load on each PS rail and test under load for current and voltage. I've found it easier to just substitute a known good supply. You can usually check the voltages in BIOS with most motherboards, but that's not under much of a load either. Your BIOS may tell you if one PS rail is below normal. BTW, the 12VDC rail is often at 11.5 or so. It's only a problem if the voltages are off by a volt or two.

If the new PS doesn't do it, try substituting out your RAM modules. They can cause all sorts of odd problems if they are failing.