Disks Take Forever To Burn... and they are poor quality

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  • ulTRAX
    Digital Video Enthusiast
    Digital Video Enthusiast
    • Jan 2005
    • 338

    Disks Take Forever To Burn... and they are poor quality

    Over the past few days I've been having problems burning disks. Burn time at 4x has gone up from 15 minutes to an hour. While I'm burning... something is eating up tons of system resources so any other tasks, even simple typing, are affected. The disks are not of the usual high quality I'm used to. PIEs have gone up to 300 when they used to be no higher than 60-100... and PIFs that are usually 2 are spiking at 7.

    Nothing odd shows up in Task Manager. Shrink is getting the bulk of the CPU usage... between 10-90%. I do wonder about why with 512megs of RAM Shrink needs 120mgs of virtual memory. Page File usage is about 430 megs.

    Poking around in device manager I noticed I have a yellow exclamation sign on the XMASSCSI SCSI controller. That has to be a clue... but in trying to update the driver, I have no idea where to look. I've read that this might have something to do with Alcohol 120 but I haven't had that on my system for 18 months.

    Any ideas?
  • LT. Columbo
    Demigod of Digital Video
    • Nov 2004
    • 10671

    #2
    is your dma on for your devices? or could you perform a system restore?
    "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
    Columbo moments...
    "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
    "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
    (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


    Comment

    • ulTRAX
      Digital Video Enthusiast
      Digital Video Enthusiast
      • Jan 2005
      • 338

      #3
      Originally Posted by columbo999
      is your dma on for your devices? or could you perform a system restore?
      I know I checked DMA when I first started using Shrink.... but where is it again?

      I've not yet tried a system restore yet. I always think of it when I'm in the middle of a project as I am now.

      BTW.... it appears I still do have Alcohol 120 installed. It didn't show up in ADD/REMOVE.... and when I tried to uninstall from the Start/Programs menu it would not let me uninstall. I tried installing over it but that got an error and was rolled back.

      Comment

      • mastercontrol
        Junior Member
        Junior Member
        • Jun 2005
        • 47

        #4
        Go to your control panel, select "System", then "Hardware", then click "Device Manager". From there, go to "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section and select the channel the DVD drive is on (should be the secondary channel). It's under the "Advanced Settings" tab. If it shows "PIO Mode", then you need to set it back to DMA.

        Comment

        • LT. Columbo
          Demigod of Digital Video
          • Nov 2004
          • 10671

          #5
          "One day men will look back and say I gave birth to the 20th Century". Jack The Ripper - 1888
          Columbo moments...
          "Double Shock" "The Greenhouse Jungle" "Swan Song" FORUM RULES
          "You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."
          (An Exercise In Fatality, 1974)


          Comment

          • ulTRAX
            Digital Video Enthusiast
            Digital Video Enthusiast
            • Jan 2005
            • 338

            #6
            Originally Posted by mastercontrol
            Go to your control panel, select "System", then "Hardware", then click "Device Manager". From there, go to "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section and select the channel the DVD drive is on (should be the secondary channel). It's under the "Advanced Settings" tab. If it shows "PIO Mode", then you need to set it back to DMA.
            Thanks.... under secondary IDE channel....

            Device 0 was on POI mode and Current Transfer Mode = POI... seems DMA is not avialable when I switch it.

            Device 1 was DMA if Available... Current Transfer Mode = ultra DMA Mode 4.

            I have two DVD drives... an older DVD-ROM and a Sony DU710a.

            Comment

            • jmet
              Super Moderator
              • Nov 2002
              • 8697

              #7
              Check your DMA settings - How ? do this -> Go to Control Panel> System> Hardware Tab> Device Manager> IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers> Right Click Primary IDE channel (and Secondary IDE channel after you finish with Primary)> Properties> Advanced Settings Tab> Transfer Mode or <a href="http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=101616">click here to learn.</a>

              Do the above from both "Primary & Secondary IDE channels".

              I (We) and you need to look at whats in both "Transfer Mode" and "Current Transfer Mode". Screen shot below is what I'm talking about.


              You can also look here for some other solutions: http://sniptools.com/vault/getting-b...windows-xp.htm

              If it is in "PIO" mode. Click the "Driver" tab, and uninstall the driver. Then reboot. Upon rebooting windows will automatically reinstall the driver and it should go back to "DMA" mode.

              Comment

              • ulTRAX
                Digital Video Enthusiast
                Digital Video Enthusiast
                • Jan 2005
                • 338

                #8
                Originally Posted by jmet
                If it is in "PIO" mode. Click the "Driver" tab, and uninstall the driver. Then reboot. Upon rebooting windows will automatically reinstall the driver and it should go back to "DMA" mode.
                Thanks everyone... I uninstalled both the primary and secondary IDE Channels. Now none read PIO mode.

                Primary is ultra DMA mode 5

                and

                Secondary... one is at DMA mode 3 and the other is DMA mode 4.

                Checking a disk... it's encoding in about 15 minutes. Sounds about right.

                Thanks again!!!


                So how did I ever get into PIO mode in the first place? I've burned perhaps some 200 disks before having these problems.
                Last edited by ulTRAX; 20 Jul 2005, 12:28 PM.

                Comment

                • jm1647
                  An Eagles Fan, A MenuShrinker
                  • Apr 2005
                  • 3661

                  #9
                  Getting errors when using the drive(s) will force it to finally go into PIO mode.

                  Comment

                  • jmet
                    Super Moderator
                    • Nov 2002
                    • 8697

                    #10
                    Congrats ulTRAX!

                    Every time windows encounters a "error" (error = trying to read a scratched up disc), it will step down 1 mode. (ie. DMA mode 4, then DMA mode 3, and so fourth until it hits PIO mode.)

                    Comment

                    • ulTRAX
                      Digital Video Enthusiast
                      Digital Video Enthusiast
                      • Jan 2005
                      • 338

                      #11
                      This has not only taken care of my burning problems....

                      Over the past few days it was taking aout 5 minutes to start up the PC.

                      Now it's back to it's normal 75-90 seconds.

                      So did anything I do affect the main hard drive?

                      Comment

                      • jmet
                        Super Moderator
                        • Nov 2002
                        • 8697

                        #12
                        Yes

                        Primary IDE channels is/are your hardrive/hardrives.

                        Secondary IDE channel is your CD-ROM/DVD-RW drives.

                        Comment

                        • mastercontrol
                          Junior Member
                          Junior Member
                          • Jun 2005
                          • 47

                          #13
                          Originally Posted by jmet
                          Yes

                          Primary IDE channels is/are your hardrive/hardrives.

                          Secondary IDE channel is your CD-ROM/DVD-RW drives.
                          That's the way most systems are configured. It is possible to have a CD/DVD device on the primary channel along with a hard drive, likewise, you can have a hard drive on the secondary channel. If someone's building or upgrading a system, and they don't have a clue of what they're doing, they can end up attaching an optical drive to the primary channel, along with the hard drive.

                          Of course, it's not recommended to mix those two types of devices together on the same IDE channel, as the CD/DVD device will slow down the hard drive performance.

                          It is also possible to have 2 hard drives on the secondary channel as well. So while the configuration you mention applies to probably about 99% of users out there, but there are always exceptions to the rule (although if the OS is on an IDE hard drive, it'd have to be on the primary channel).
                          Last edited by mastercontrol; 21 Jul 2005, 12:55 AM.

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