Slow Burn/Buffer problems when burning with Nero...

[mjvgiese]

(I tried to include alot of info in this post, that's why it looks a little long...)

I'm having slow burn problems with nero, but I think it's caused by buffer problems. The "used read buffer" goes all the way up to 100% when the burn first starts, but within a minute it starts to drop, and it keeps dropping until it gets to 0% and it sits there like that through the whole burn, everyonce in a while it'll go up to maybe 3% for a second, then it drops right back down to 0%.

I'm burning at 2.4x, and it used to take me 30 minutes to burn a DVD, but now it's taking 55 minutes. I just reformatted my computer using the "restore" cd that came with it. My burns were normal until I did that, and the "used read buffer" was always up at 100%, but ever since I reformatted I've been having this slow burn/buffer problem, which makes me think there is just a setting hosed up somewhere.

I'd like to point out that I have 2 hard drives in my computer, one is an older 40GB, and one is a newer 80GB. The problems I described above are when I'm burning from the older 40GB, but the "used read buffer" does the same thing no matter which drive I'm burning from, but it only take 30 minutes to burn from the 80GB, and it's taking 55minutes to burn from the older 40GB.

As a side note, I burned a VCD (from the older 40GB drive) last night and the "used read buffer" stayed way up at 98 - 100% the whole time, and it was not a slow burn, it took the same amount of time that it used to.

Anyone got any ideas? I checked DMA/PIO, I don't really know what this means, but on the Primary IDE channel, both Device 0 and Device 1 are set to "DMA if available" and it says the current transfer mode on both of them is Ultra DMA Mode 5. On the secondary IDE channel, Device 0 and 1 both say "DMA if available", and the current transfer mode on Device 0 is "Ultra DMA Mode 2", but it says "PIO Mode" on Device 1.

My burns seem to be ok, the discs work and everything, but I just can't stand the slowness when burning from the older hard drive, and the low "used read buffer" thing kind of bugs me, since I think it's the cause for the slow burns.

[handyguy]

" "DMA if available", and the current transfer mode on Device 0 is "Ultra DMA Mode 2", but it says "PIO Mode" on Device 1. "

Yep happened to me recently. Took me lots of reading to change it. Basically, just deletce the secondary controller & restart your computer, wait as it detects things again & then change everything to DMA.

I did that a lot but what it finally was for me was that my BIOS set the writer to NONE, so I changed it to AUTO & it worked & back to DMA.

[mjvgiese]

Ok, that sounds hopeful, and I'm willing to try that. So I should just go into the properties of My Computer, and then go to Device Manager and right click on the Secondary IDE channel and hit Uninstall, right? And then it will detect it when I restart.

Thanks for the reply! I have a little hope now.

[mjvgiese]

I finally got up the nerve to do it, and I uninstalled the Secondary IDE Channel and then restarted. Everything went fine, and XP came up and detected 3 or 4 things. I went into Device Manager and checked it out, and both Device 0 and 1 said DMA if available and the tranfer mode on both was Ultra DMA Mode 2.

I went into Nero to try it, just to make sure it was working. Its still burning, and it seems things are somewhat better than they were. The burn started, and the used read buffer went up to 100% and stayed there for about 5 minutes, but then it started to drop and it got down to 0% and stayed there for a few minutes. Then it started to really fluxuate, up to 30%, then back down to 0, then up to 100, and slowly back down, and now it's back up to 100% and it's been there for a few minutes.

Is it normal for the used read buffer to fluxuate so much? I've never really paid much attention to it, all I know is whenever I've looked at it, it used to always be at 98 or 100, that was before I reformatted using a "restore" cd this past weekend, though.

EDIT - The burn got done, and it ended up taking 34 minutes. I guess I can live with that, as long as it doesn't start to take longer. I'd still like to know if it's normal for the buffer to fluxuate that much, though.