Newb question but why cant I burn at full speed?

Newbie Forum
#1

Hi, here are my computers specs:

Athlon 3500+
1gb ram
250mb serial ata HD
Benq 1655 burner

My problem is that even though my pc is pretty quick, I cannot burn above 16 or 20x. I am using a Benq 1655 drive with the latest firmware (BCGB) and memorex CD-R media rated to 52x. The software I am using is Nero 7. What happens is when I try to burn at a fast speed, it starts with the lead in, gets to about 6% and then the progress bar goes no further. The time keeps going up and the drive light keeps flashing, and eventually it will start to freeze the computer every 30 seconds or so for about 10 seconds. After a while it will error out with a write error.

Any ideas?

#2

Firstly check that your burner has DMA enabled. This is often a cause of burning problems. Here’s a link to help.

Secondly ensure that you’re using the very latest Nero V7 as the early releases were somewhat buggy.

Finally dump your Memorex CD-R as they’re definitely not the best. Verbatim is a much better option.

#3

Media Media Media: I have 2 types of cd’s here. both rated at high speed. One will allow me to burn at high speed. The results are bad. The other allows me to only burn at lower speeds. Likley the write codes in the burner firmware. You may post the brands your using. I have had good results with some, others just go into the trash bin they are so bad. (have to jump through hoops just to see written data) DVD drives don’t always make the best CD burners but a 1655 I don’t know much about. I have twin 1640’s :slight_smile:

ps: Tim just pointed out a brand that spends lots of time in landfills :iagree:

#4

ok so I got a sample pack of TY02 media which is supposed to be pretty good but it still seems to suck.

Here is what I am getting with QSuite.

First the Ritek G05… it sucks

At 2.4x it locked up the drive, didn’t finish

Here is 4x… eww

And 8x … heh…

Now for the TY02

2.4x, looks pretty good

4x still good

8x awww… cummon

So what am I missing here? The TY is supposed to be good media! This is supposed to be a good drive! Is there some setting I don’t know about that I can change? I really want to be able to make use of the speed of this drive.

#5

G05 is and always was cheap media, avoid them.

#6

Don’t rely too much on Benq’s Qscan. Have you [B]actually tried to burn[/B] these TY discs @8X? :confused:

#7

I would go with santa on not relying on QScan. There is only one true way to test if something will burn at a given speed and that is to burn it at that speed and see what happens.

#8

Burns are dependent on hardware,software,firmware,speed, and media. I have not had a single problem burning cheap media at the correct speed for that media. A rule of thumb is 4-8x for cheap stuff and 8-12x for the good stuff! Never set you burn to max speed and go into Nero and setup your buffer and cache limits to max.
Also Cheap media is very sensitive to multitasking on your computer. Suggest you close out all un needed APPs before a burn with cheap media.