Abnormally slow read speads w/ Samsung SH183L

I've read a lot of the posts hear about the samsung sata ODD's having slow read speeds so I downloaded a speed tester and it's showing 11-15x CD read spead on various burned and retail discs ... that seems slower than even most others are reporting (24x) ... is there anything I can do to remedy this?

So far I've upgraded to the newest firmware, made sure sata raid was disabled in BIOS and I've got the ODD on a separate controller, and tried downloading magicspeed and setting it to "fastest" ... no change ... The driver being used is the standard windows driver that comes with an xp SP2 disc ... I think it's dated around 09/05 and I haven't had an internet connect to try and auto-update it ... Does anyone know what driver version their using or if there are other steps I can try?

Hi and Welcome!I couldn't complain with my 163. Maybe just a problem with the software you were using to test. If you have Nero installed, then please run the benchmark test using Nero CD/DVD speed and report back.
Windows standard drivers are okay and mostly recommended. Nothing wrong with them.

Michael

Thanks for the welcome! ... I should have specified that I've read about slow read speeds with this drive specifically ... but concerning my specific instance Nero CD/DVD speed is the software I used to benchmark and is what was reporting the 15x CD read speed. I didn't think it would be a problem with the standard windows driver, I suppose I was just hoping that would be the case as I can't think of any other solutions ... truth be told it's not the end of the world that it reads a little slow, as it seems to do better than most at reading media that other drives haven't been able to, and it writes at the correct speeds, the only time I really get annoyed is when installing games

Hi,Okay, then there is also another drive installed in your system? And this is faster? Maximum or average? Is that a smooth transfer rate curve?If you are running a brand new chipset, then trying the latest drivers for this might also be worth a try.
That drive really should be able to read unprotected CD discs at full speed. I suspect, there is something wrong with your system, maybe some driver or piece of software (DRM enhancement crap installed by some music CDs or games) preventing higher read speeds. What about DVD reading with your system?

Michael

The maximum is usually ~15.4x and the average is ~15x, the curve is mostly flat other than a quick ramp up from about 12x .... I've also noticed that the seek times are really long, around 120ms and the drive itself takes a long time to "spin up".

The chipset is the Nvidia nForce 680i, which is about as new as it gets, the newest drivers are the forceware 97.92 I believe, which is what is installed, I haven't been able to find any reports of slow SATA ODD read speads with this chipset.

There's actually no other software installed on the machine right now other than 2 games and some benchmark programs, so I don't think it will be software or DRM related (haven't even played any CD's in it yet) ... and I haven't had a chance to test DVD's because every time I put one it the nero speed reader gives me different errors.

One other thing, I looked in my event viewer last night and there are constant errors reported such as "The device: device0\cdrom has repoted a bad block" and some other errors I can't remember off the top of my head.

I would stick with the whql certified nvidia drivers

not from a cd or mobo site

Hi,I remember some post, where installing NVidia IDE drivers (normally not recommended) instead of using the MS internal ones helped.
Possibly interface problems. Please, check the cables, as sometimes SATA cables are not sitting tight enough.

Michael

Thought I should post a followup:

I had to RMA the MB for an unrelated reason (faulty memory controller), after setting up the new board everything runs as expected, CD read speeds at 30x+ ... Thanks for all the suggested troubleshooting!