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A fix for cd burning slowdowns

  • 11-01-2004 11:11pm
    #1
    Mutant_Fruit
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,943 ✭✭✭


    For those of you expiencing slowdowns/frequent stops when burning cd's, heres a fix i found.

    Basically whenever i burned a cd, i couldn't do much else, even though i had an Athlon 1800+ (1.5ghz). It would often make the drive stop burning (thankfully i had buffer underun protection so i didn't get coasters), but this was a very annoying problem.

    Recently, i decided to go on a driver updating spree. I updated my Via 4-in-1's, graphics card etc. One thing i noticed is that via's IDE driver wasn't installed by default, so i decided, what the heck, i'll go install it. So i downloaded and installed it.

    It came with a handy tool, which shows what DMA speed your cd-roms and hd's are using. Using this tool (called IDETOOL) i found that my hd's were set to UDMA2 (Ultra DMA 2) and my cd-roms to Multiword DMA 0. Both were well below the settings they should be using (Hd's should've been UDMA5 and cdroms UDMA2). So i quickly set them to their proper speeds, and now everything works perfectly.

    I'm pretty sure the VIA IDE busmastering drivers will work on any system, as they are a standalone replacement for the windows ones. If you have this problem, try this solution.

    EDIT: heres the drivers

    EDIT 2: here's


Comments

  • #2
    vibe666
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,016 ✭✭✭✭vibe666


    might just give it a go. my new dvd writer seems to stop and start, and it could well be that that's causing the problems.

    also worth mentioning that it's worth having the burner on a different IDE cable to the data you are burning to it. doesn't always make a difference, and it's not supposed to, but it was advise given to me a couple of years back, and it seems to help more often than not.


  • #3
    OfflerCrocGod
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,321 ✭✭✭OfflerCrocGod


    You should be able to set this stuff in the BIOS.


  • #4
    Mutant_Fruit
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,943 ✭✭✭Mutant_Fruit


    2 extra things, never under any circumstances attach a burner to the same harddrive as has your windows install, and avoid if possible having a burner connected on the same channel as a hard drive.
    You should be able to set this stuff in the BIOS.

    Well, in my bios the UDMA options are limited to ENABLED and DISABLED, and they were enabled. It was windows itself that limited the speed, for whatever reason. It was only through running this tool, and installing the new drivers that i got the full speeds working.

    And just a bit of tech info: AFAIK, the usual max UDMA mode for cdroms is UDMA2, and hd's are usually UDMA5.


  • #5
    Mutant_Fruit
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,943 ✭✭✭Mutant_Fruit


    This will speed up general cd-access/hd-access speeds aswell. So anyone who doesn't have the fast UDMA settings selected will experience a boost in speed in everything, from installing apps to running games when they get the right settings selected.

    Everyone should make sure that the have the right UDMA settings used.


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