812@832s CG5G

Is anyone using this firmware and what are your burn avg speeds/times? I'm using RiTek R03s (RiData 8x) and getting about 12:30min burns at best with a 5x Burn avg... is this normal at all? I've tried the CG3E/CG4E/CG5E and I still get speeds avging around 5x/12.xx min. Lots orange light flashing and 1-2.1x speeds at times...
I'm using XP Sp1a, 512M ram, XP1600+, Bit-setting, burns come out fine, just seem a little slow for 8x?

Thanks

Well, I've burnt a test disc in CDSpeed in 9:08min with an average speed of 7.16x..

Have you checked if DMA is enabled?

Because of RITEKR03's variable quality, it's limited to 4x in the CGxx firmwares, IIRC.

[Have you checked if DMA is enabled?]

-- Yes DMA-2 is enabled and working fine. Also I'll hit speeds of 7.9/8x on occassion, that's when my buffer(128M) (in burn progs) really starts to eat up and eventually goes to 0, and the drive will slow to 1-2x with the orange light blinking. Then It'll speed back up after a bit/when buffer refills

[Because of RITEKR03's variable quality, it's limited to 4x in the CGxx firmwares, IIRC]

--- When I check the media type it says:
Physical Format Information (ADIP):
Disc ID: RITEK-R03-02 (8x's)
Book Type: DVD+R

I thought that RiTek was a "better than avg" brand? What should I next time?
Maybe I should reflash my drive and check the firmware settings... far as I know I've got it set to burn fast... thx for the replies!

Yeah, I just reflashed with CG5G, 8x, early Shift... and still get ~4.7x avg burn! Wish I could post this Performance graph pic from Alcohol. best way I can describe it is it quickly goes to 4x then plateaus, then drops a bit then rises to 6x, plateaus, dives, rises to ~8x, then plateaus, then continues to dive/rise/plateau until the end of the burn.... All the while the 128M buffer fills, drops, fills, repeat etc....

I can't say about the speed but with my 832s the R03s burn much better with VS0G than CG5G. From the same spindle, all 10 I tried with each firmware were better with VS so I have a hard time figuring how it's called "quality" firmware lol.

Hrmm, what do you mean "much better," did you test with Kprobe or some kind of CD analysis prog?

Good lord, my last burn was 3.4x avg this is just crazy slow, something has to be very wrong, though the burns work though...

Awww crap! I tried flashing down from CG5g to VSOG and now my drive is doing the orange blink and failed to reflash the last time... I cannot get to codeguy's page and remember how to fix this mess! ANyone know off hand?

First, you might want to run the VS0G firmware through OmniPatcher (if you haven't done so already) to enable crossflashing.

If you are using the .EXE (firmware and flasher integrated) and running it through OmniPatcher then trying to reflash doesn't work, you will probably need to grab the .BIN version (see below).

If you have the .BIN VS0G firmware file, you have to use mtkflash (NOT mtkwinflash) to re-flash your drive....I found a page http://kenny.storageinfo.co.kr/firmware/liteon/ that has links to various firmwares and patchers, etc. Near the bottom of the page there will be links for Mtkflash as well as a guide to use it (look for the bold MediaTek Tools heading to the left). Hope this helps.

Wow I had a total Brain freeze on that... I restarted and patched VSOG with the omnipatcher: Early shift, Forced 6/8x, Auto Bit, crossflash fix, and have now watched my +12min times drop to about 8-9min! Movies are coming out fine... I'm going to need to do a Kprobe test to see about the quality.... I wonder why CG5G/3E burns so slow... What a shame. Just what avg burn times should I be seeing with this drive @832 in general?

Every drive is different in some way......considering your 832S is really an 812S I would say that the CodeGuys firmware didn't really work for you in the speed category.

And 8-9 minutes sounds about right to me...I have an HP DVD Writer 530r (hp branded SOHW-832S) and it gets burns around that length of time when burning Memorex 8x DVD-R media (CMC Mag AE1 media code). VS0G doesn't really work well with my drive for quality....but the HP version of this (VPSG) which is essentially the same thing works well in both speed and quality. So choose whichever works best for your drive......There are many options to choose from.

(Sorry about the brain freeze)

BTW why is your LTR-52327S only at xx57? I had mine at xx5A (in a hewlett-packard I gave to my dad).

Well crap, I thought I had it fixed! Using VSOG and went to backup DVD's w/Alcohol 192 1705, in this case ISO... Times are ridiculously slow. At 8x max setting I'm avg'ing around 3-4.7x! I've noticed no matter what I set the buffer to, it fills, then runs completely out around 6-7x, then burn speeds slow to a crawl, then it fills, spd goes to 7-8x - Now repeat through out the WHOLE burn. I wish I could post the performance graph, this is driving me nuts... I might just have to bow out and head up to SwapMart and just get a 1693S. I'm fine with 7-8x, but 3-5x burns are just retardedly slow.

BTW what are your hard drive specs? I barely managed to burn at 8x (dropped between 6 and 8x..sometimes lower) witha Maxtor 96147U8 5400 RPM*2 MB cache*ATA100 (on ATA66)* drive. My 530r (832S) barely holds up at 8x and regularly slows down, but my DW-D22A (1633S @ 1653S/710A) holds an 8x +R disc (Sony D11) or -R disc (CMC Magnetics AE1) at 8.1x from the 1.5/2 GB mark until the end of the disc.

There is some reason that your system can't keep your buffer filled, and it appears that something just cannot handle the higher speeds (or something is choking it down). It might be your DVD drive, or it might be your hard drive. Post back with some specs (or at least a model number obtained from Windows Device Manager, and someone will Google it for you) for the hard drive, please.

I've got 2 drives: Boot/Data = Maxtor DiamondMax 10 plus 7.2Krpm, 8M cache, ata133 | Western Dig 1600JBse 7.2Krpm, 8M cache, Ata100... So I don't think the HD is the problem... It's prob just the drive itself, since it wasn't really intended for 8x burns in the 1st place lol! Sucks that when I was using nero it was getting 8-9min burns, then alcohol pwn's me with a nasty 14min burn for the same size burn...

Yeah. I guess it's time for a new drive then. Some drives can be physically overspeed by crossflashing, others can't. I have a 1633S rebadge that can't stand anything faster than the stock BYX4 DRU-710A firmware. Sorry your drive decided to crap out on you, but at least it still works. Like I said, my 832S can barely hold 8x, and you are probably going to get the performance you want from a drive that can handle the 12 or 16x speeds (the 1633S holds at 8x quite nicely if you can only get our hands on 8x media. For 16x media you might want to hop up the the 73S/93S drives.)

If you do get a new drive and you get the same results, be sure to return it as soon as possible. If that was to occur there is another problem within your system (as I am sure you would realize).

Eh I don't know OMFG I just got done with a FABULOUS 8x burn in alcohol120 that lasted a whole 18:12!!! wtf. Avging 3.4x. According to the performance graph, the drive reachs 6x plateau at about the 400M mark, then drops to 1-2.xx at 1G, then ramps to 7.xx plateau, then dives and repeats up to 7.xx 9times throughout the whole burn, but the plateaus are short as evidence of the memory buffer suddenly getting used up once 7x is reached... This just sucks. I might try an even older firmware, I don't know what to do... This is ridiculous.

If you can, do a test burn in Nero CD/DVD Speed (http://www.cdspeed2000.com ) and see if it really Is your drive. I have no clue as to why, but there is a serious bottleneck somewhere, and this will make sure it's not the drive itself. To test the drive's recording capabilites in CD/DVD Speed, click -Run Test>>Create Data Disc- and wait for it to finish.

If a similar thing happens in CD Speed (plateau, drop, plateau, drop, etc.), then it's your drive. If not, then something isn't configured right.

-I haven't used Alcohol, so I don't know if you can raise/lower the buffer size ( Nero Burning ROM doesn't seem to like anything larger that an 80MB buffer, or nothing more than 40% of your physical memory, whichever is lower).

-Is it possible you don't have enough free memory to support a 128 MB buffer? For a 128MB buffer to fall down so often when using ATA100-133/8MB buffer/7.2K RPM hard drives is ridiculous, provided there is enough physical memory available (possible intereference of the Windows page file?).

-Honestly, I don't know where the problem would come in unless your hard drive is fragmented or something is (for some reason) trying to access it at the same time. Besides the page file, there aren't many things that will access your drive when using a lot of physical memory.

If the same effect doesn't occur with CD Speed, and your hard drive is indeed defragmented, then you might want to benchmark various parts of your system to give you an idea of where the problem might reside. Report you results, please.

If you can, do a test burn in Nero CD/DVD Speed (http://www.cdspeed2000.com ) and see if it really Is your drive. I have no clue as to why, but there is a serious bottleneck somewhere, and this will make sure it's not the drive itself. To test the drive's recording capabilites in CD/DVD Speed, click -Run Test>>Create Data Disc- and wait for it to finish.

Well I guess I have GOOD news! I ran the test and got this
[16:35:47] Creating Data Disc
[16:45:05] 9:19 Speed:4-8 X P-CAV (7.14 X average)

So that's just about right what I should expect... I guess then it's some kind of memory buffer setting. I've got 512M, and that should be plenty for 128M buffer, but I guess not. I'll have to play around with the setting till I hit the sweet spot. With nero I think I've got my buffer at 80M and last time it took ~9min or so to burn a dvd image. I hope that it's the software Vs my drive. I really don't wanna cough up cash for burning... I got an A64 platform to save up for...

If that doesn't solve anything, a side note: what drivers are you using on your IDE controller? IE, do you have VIA drivers, nForce drivers, etc? Sometimes that will cause a bottleneck (known through personal experience).

Nforce v2.6's... This is strange, I think it's limited to alcohol, but I'm goint to try to burn the same image with nero and see what happens... I'm so fed up with this. Least CDspeed shows the drive is okay. with a nice stepping from 4x to 6x, then a near solid line to 7.8-8x to finish.

I'm hoping that it is limited to Alcohol. If it is, it stinks that you can't use it, but at least it's not your drive. Hopefully some other software will work where Alcohol failed. I don't believe it is the first time that I have heard of Alcohol having/causing troubles with some users.

Well, I really appreciate your fanatical help! Since nobody else seemed concerned, thanks a LOT! I think I'll try and lower the buffer again to 70M and see if that helps... Since Ram isn't really a problem... for you don't need 512M to burn at 8x, but the more the better...

I always wipe the learnt memory when i flash new firmware. I'm positive the learnt data caused me probs once.

And with this drive I usually just burn 4X. 8X seems to need the absolute BEST disks out there to be reliable.

@ V12|V12: I'm glad to help (or, at least, I hope I help). I am just using the little bit of info I have acquired since I came here earlier this year, as well as my experience with a small corner of the world of software. I'm hoping that it will work out for you the way you want it to. But if it doesn't, there are even more people @ CD Freaks who wouldn't mind helping you out/giving you advice (you can see that in the post right before mine). You seem to have a handle on things now, and I hope you can work it all out.

Ah, hello! Yeah I think I may not have wiped the learned memory...

I think I might just do a complete EEPROM fix and flash back to the drive's original 812S state, burn a test DVDRW and then flash up to 832S again, and see of that makes any diff. The burn results for CD-Speed were great and right on target, but of course I forgot to save a dang screen capt of it, and I couldn't figure out how to post pics on the forums to show folks