Slow 2.5x burning Plextor px-716a

crazytim77 2006-04-21 13:13:55 UTC #1

hi,

I am having a problem with my dvd burner - it will only burn at 2.5x on a variety of media rated upto 16x.

I have spend hours searching the FAQs and other similar threads, trying all the tricks in the book - but annoyingly i can't seem to solve this.

My system is as follows:

AMD Athlon XP M 2500 - running at 2.4 GHz
MSI KT6 Delta-FISR KT600 DDR400 FSB400
1 GB pc3200 ddr 400
Plextor PX-716A 16x DVDÂ±RW Dual Layer Internal IDE
LG GDR-8163BL 16x52 DVD-ROM Internal IDE
Seagate ST3200822AS Barracuda 200GB 7200RPM SATA/150 8MB
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 PRO

windows XP pro version 2002

The media i have burnt so far are:

Infiniti 8x DVD+R E240 25 discs
Infiniti Samurai 8x Dvd-r 25 discs
Datasafe 4x DVD-R 50 discs
Datawrite 8x DVD-R Titanium Grey 50 discs
Datawrite 16x DVD+R Classic yellow 5 discs

For the most part burning has been successful - i.e. no coasters. However all the media take a little over 20 minutes to burn a full disc.

I know these are not the best quality discs to use, but i think there is something wrong with my system, because i think i should get faster speeds than 2.5x.

The discs i have used most recently (Datawrite 16x DVD+R Classic yellow) are identified with plextools as manufacture id R04 product revision 4. Plextors website lists this media (under another brand name) as compatible but may have error rates higher than recommended media at/above this speed. Which leads me to think the media should burn faster than 2.5x.

So far I have tried the following:
*checked to see that dma is enabled
*updating the plextor firmware to v1.09
*defragmenting the hd
*ending background apps and tasks in the task manager
*checked the drive cable is an 80 connecter - not a 40
*enabled and disabled power rec
*a diagnostic write transfer rate test on Plextools XL - constant rate at 2.5ish
*unistalled the drive and let windows recognise the drive

CDs burn nice and fast, but not the DVDs.

Any advice would be much apreciated.

Looking at the threads, its such a common problem it deserves a checklist or flowchart or something.

Thanks in advance

Tim

hwp 2006-04-21 13:25:23 UTC #2

Sounds like PIO mode instead of DMA: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=49767#general-dma

drpino 2006-04-21 13:57:18 UTC #3

if not a DMA issue, try burning with the 716 as the Master on your IDE channel WITHOUT your LG -ROM on secondary...

crazytim77 2006-04-21 15:06:44 UTC #4

Regarding the DMA, I have already seen the page you suggested. Just to double check .... in Plextools i see my Plextor burner is listed under IDE Interface 1 > ID:0

Over in the Device manager i assume i should be looking under Primary IDE Channel settings. Here Device 0 is set to DMA if available. But then it says "not applicable" greyed out underneath. Should it be greyed out / set to something else?

Regarding unplugging the second dvd drive, i will try this once I make sure the DMA settings are good.

thanks a lot for your help...

zevia 2006-04-21 15:40:22 UTC #5

IDE Interface 1 is Secondary IDE Channel. So your PX-716A is in Secondary IDE Channel as Master (ID:0). Check the DMA in Device Manager. If it's in PIO then delete the Secondary IDE Channel and reboot.

crazytim77 2006-04-21 17:03:11 UTC #6

Brilliant!! It works!!

Zevia I owe you a drink. THANKS!

I would like to suggest an addition to the page on "Enabling/ Checking DMA In Windows XP/ 2000". In my case it was set to "DMA if available" which according to the guide is what it should be. BUT the current transfer mode was stuck on PIO which was the problem - the guide does not mention this. I uninstalled secondary IDE channel, rebooted, and burn times are very fast. And it only took me about 10 hours!! :doh: