NEC ND-6650A 8x problem

Hey, I have a problem with my NEC ND-6650A drive. I just got a brand new replaced drive from Dell and I cannot burn at 8x with this drive. When using CloneDVD2 or any other software for that matter to burn a dvd movie, it takes about 15 minutes to burn. I click burn at 8x but it doesnt go any faster. When burning the exact same dvd on my desktop burner, which has a maximum burn speed of 4x, the time it takes to burn that dvd is about the same as my NEC ND-6650A drive or a bit faster. This obviously means that my 6650A drive is having a problem and is not burning at 8x and is most likely burning at 4x. I have been on tech support for 2 hours with dell and they couldnt help me. So let me know if you guys have any ideas. Thanks

Two questions; what media are you using (full MID) and what's your new drives firmware?

I am using Verbatim DVD-R 16x and the MID is MCC 03RG20 and my current firmware is Dell 103D

Your media should be able to burn at 8x.
Do you have any other 16x +R media at your hands? Try that.

BTW, can you waste a disc for test burn in CD/DVD Speed and show as that burn (and transfer rate) graph. Thanks.

Sure I can do that, would you mind telling me how I can do this. Thanks

Here is what I did in Nero, I dont know if I did it right, but let me know.

Thanks.
That looks normal to me for empty media. You can do the same with a burned disc.
But first, choose "Create Disc" and try again.

Hope you got your hands on some decent +R media.

Edited.

Alright when I click on "Create Disc" what do you want me to do under settings, click on burn image at 8x?

Sorry not being more precize about Create Disc function but here is a guide.
After that burn eject disc and perform a transfer rate test again as you did above (Benchmark--> Start).

BTW, you can save CD/DVD Speed window with that floppy button at top of app (as .png image, much smaller then yours .jpeg).

Hey, I did the tests. Let me know what you think is wrong. It still seems like it is going soooo slow. Thanks

Nothing wrong there. This is the way it is with laptop slimdrives... they are very slooow.
My sons drive does exactly the same, but cpu and buffer looks better (higher/lower) even on a 6y old lappy, linky .

And you just proved you are able to burn at 8x, although only the last 500MB.

Edited.

How come only the last 500MB burn at 8x this is BS because I should be able to burn at 8x for the entire disc. Even when using clonedvd2 a few minutes ago a full dvd took 28 minutes to burn....which is absurdity. It should take a maximum of 10 minutes at 8x.

Sorry to say, this fact might be BS for you but reality for all of us.

How come on my 4x maximum desktop burner I can burn the exact same dvd in 12 minutes? How come my 8x dvd burner on my laptop takes 28 minutes??? Doesnt seem to make too much sense to me

Like pinto2 said, laptop slimline drives are slow. They don't afford the speeds that desktop drives do [as they can use only so much power, put out so much heat, etc], and use a much slower RPM to burn. My Samsung slim drive does a disc at 8x in 11 minutes at best, but it uses a P-CAV burn [not Z-CLV] which gives it a slightly higher average speed [it still uses the same start RPM as the NEC for most of the burn]. It only reaches 8x by the last 500 or 600 MB, though.

4x on desktop drives is 4x all the way through [CLV], or uses a faster Z-CLV [depends on the burner]. This still gives a higher average speed and better burn times than laptop drives. Also take into account that your desktop drive probably writes the lead in/lead out a bit faster than your laptop, and you have slightly different times.

And 28 minutes sounds like both read+write for a copy of a disc [since it took 14 minutes to burn, and it looks like it would take 14 or so minutes to read].

I wasnt copying a disc, I was burning the dvd that was on my hard drive so something is obviously wrong if it took 28 minutes just to burn and by the way what model is your samsung slim drive?

[o/t] my laptop Sammy is the TS-L632M. I like it. [end off-topic]

Ahh...I may have missed this question being asked, but are you sure your hard drive is defragmented/is performing to its fullest? Since you were burning from your HDD, for it to take twice as long, it's either a data flow issue from hard drive, the software didn't set the burning speed right, or some other variable. I would imagine that any recent laptop drive could support the slower speeds of slim drives, but there has been weirder stuff to occur.

Yeah I dont know what the deal is, I am burning from an external hard drive so who knows what is going on. Any ideas?

Could you use HDTach to test to make sure your external drive is feeding the data fast enough?

[There are tips on the HDTach site on how to use the software for a quick test and for a thorough test.]

Here are my results

Wow, so no problems there. Do you have a log file of the CloneDVD2 process? I can only wonder where this is taking so much time.

Another thing: if you try to burn an image file with, say, ImgBurn, does it take 28 minutes or only the 14?

I dont know what is going on, but I bought a SAMSUNG 8X DVD±R Slim DVD Burner With 5X DVD-RAM Write Black E-IDE/ATAPI Model SN-S082D - OEM off newegg.com so do you think this will make any difference. What are your thoughts?

There's a small chance that it won't work due to master/slave settings [that are controlled by the firmware, not jumpers on a drive], as the Samsung might try to compete with your internal hard drive for the master position. [If that was to happen, you could go here and find out information on how to resolve it].

As for overall performance: if the SN-S082D is anything like the TS-L632* series, you should see a little bit of a performance boost.

I'd still say, though, that your NEC looks to be working properly, and that there's something else on your system gumming up the works. That's why I suggested posting the contents of a log file, if you could, of a burn.

This is the log file from Clone DVD2, it doesnt really say anything though.....

Off topic.Samsung provides CS firmware for latest slimdrives.
And comparing your linked firmwares with Samsungs I would like to raise a warning flag because it seems linked fw's are not compatible with drive gschept180 ordered.