DVD BUFFER QUESTION

[d_crome]

Hi all,
I have my Pioneer 106D hooked up as the primary on my system (its an Asus N-force m/b) and am having some rather weird problems with the write buffer, its never continuously at say 96% but drastically jumps up and down.

Is there a way to fix this?? The system also occasionally freezes midway through buring (with DVD Decrypter), giving me another drink coaster.

ANY and ALL help is appreciated!!

[rcb]

cuppla ideas

1) make sure all un-needed background apps/utilities/tsr's/anti-virus items are shut down before burning.

2) perform a defrag on drive holding your compiled burn files just before you start the burn.

3) Avoid multitasking during burn - no gaming, inet surfing, etc.

4) If feasable, consult your burning app's help file, website support and/or do a search of this site for more background on any related quirks/fixes

[gmatov]

I have to go against the grain on your defrag suggestion, as the Feb 2004 issue of PC World has a short article on defragging.

They found no performance increase by defragging a heavily fragmented drive.

Heresy, I know, but that's what they say.

Does your buffer hit zero when the burn fails? If not, it should be some other problem, than the buffering. A 2 MB buffer is a "cushion", so that there is always data on hand when it can't be delivered fast enough, and I can't imagine a system that can't deliver the data fast enough, today, with ATA 100 and 133, and even Serial ATA.

4X is 5.4 MB per second, that is slow!!!

Cheers,

George

[Ripper2860]

Probably something you've already done, but I'll throw it out anyway...

Make sure you are running the latest NForce drivers. Seems several revisions of the drivers were plagued with IDE related issues that could manifest itself as you've described. Visit the NVidia site and make sure you have the latest revision.

Also -- if you are running XP, make sure that the IDE controllers in DEVICE LIST are set to "DMA if available" and that it is detected with the correct TRANSFER MODE. Sometimes XP has a "memory lapse" and it shows to have been reset to PIO. If so delete the IDE controller from DEVICE LIST and re-boot to let Windows re-detect. Happens occassionally although I think it may have been fixed in SP1 or via a hotfix. Never hurts to check.