Nero's recording buffer very unstable

jozi

Nero's recording buffer seems to be very unstable when i try to record disc (music, not sure about data, yet) and eventually i get an error!

I used to be able to do discs at 48X but now at 12X it's nearly to fast.

My pc should be up for the job no problem!

Was thinking icould it be the way i have the IDE cables connected up to the mobo?
Have cd-rw, Dvd and hard disc, cd-rw and dvd share a IDE cable HD has it's own, could it be the jumpers?

Another thing i noticed, as i'm typing this letter are appearing on screen long after i typed them, cpu usage is at 100% that normal?

My pc: AMD XP 2500
512 mb RAM (Pc 3200)
Windows XP Pro
Lite-on 52X32X52X Cd-rw

Hope someone has some advice/help for me, thanks,

Brendan

unkel

Originally posted by jozi
Another thing i noticed, as i'm typing this letter are appearing on screen long after i typed them, cpu usage is at 100% that normal?

Hello Brendan

Try that again and hit ctrl-shift-escape to bring up the task manager. Report back what program is using so much of the cpu resource

Also my experience with the AMD chips is that for best results, you shouldn't really do very much with your computer while writing to CD/DVD media at the same time. For writing data to CD/DVD, your IDE cable connections are fine. Not perfect for copying CD/DVD though - better off having the optical drives on separate IDE channels

Hope that helps m8

Col_Loki

Your CDRW really should be set to master..... ie using the end of the cable and set to master with the jumpers.

Also go into control pannel -> system -> hardware tab -> device manager and IDE ATA/ATAPI , click on secondary controller and then the advanced settings tab......... make sure DMA is activated , this can be the reason for the CPU being 100% when burning a CD and also the lagging effect.

Hope this helps a little......

Loki

Mutant_Fruit

It's more than likely that you have DMA disabled. I run an Athlon 1800+ (@1800+ speeds :-p) and i can burn an audio cd at about 30-40% cdpu load (i think), and i can burn a data cd at 48x with about 3% load.

It's absolutely nothing to do with the jumper settings. If the jumpers were wrong, then the drive wouldn't work at all. My burner is on secondary slave, and my DVD-rom is secondary master, and it works perfectly, and always has.

Also my experience with the AMD chips is that for best results, you shouldn't really do very much with your computer while writing to CD/DVD media at the same time.

This is only true when you have a slow computer. Even my trusty 1800+ is plenty fast to burn and use other apps. Any computer will have fits if you start using apps that access the harddrive a lot though, so i wouldn't advise using those. I've burned discs while playing counter-strike.

jozi

Thanks for the speedy replies!

Have dma enabled as was mentioned above but still no joy, buffer level goes up and down like mad and used buffer does as well but not as much.
task manager shows that nero does use up some of the cpu not much except for the start when it's normalizing volume.
the disc spins up as if it where going fast and then it just stops after a bit and i get a write error

i din't mention that i also have a sata hd but that would hardly have anything to do with it

i just find it strange that al of a sudden it basically stops working right, have the drive since sept/oct but dads pc has his drive for a few years and it's fine (not that it works now, drivers missing or something but we'll not get into that now i should be ok fixing that)

(i done some system tweaking recently after a clean windows instal, al i did was stop services and change them to manual. followed instructions from the blackviper site)

it's late now, i'll leave it at this for now and let me know if you's think of anything that might help or be wrong

thanks,
brendan

unkel

Originally posted by Mutant_Fruit
I've burned discs while playing counter-strike.

You're doing better than I used to

On my previous rig (nforce2, xp3000) there was a risk of a coaster while running anything heavy besides nero

No more of that with my new P4c rig

just_steven

EDIT Jozi here using my brothers account cause im on his pc


i decided to take all my drives out of the pc and set the jumpers right, just in case they where wrong, they where all on cable select so i changed them to prim and master.

fired up pc, checked bios to see if everything was ok, exit save.... windows xp loading...... BSOD!!!! WHY???

disconected cd/dvd drives stil no joy
changed jumper on hd to what it was when it was working, stil bsod

just went from one little problem to another:mad:

going to see can i do a fresh windows instal and if that fails i guess i'll have to get a floppy drive so i can install drivers for sata with a windows install to that disc

are there drivers needed for cd-rw drives, didn't think so none on the lite-on site for my drive anyway

Mutant_Fruit

nah, IDE drives work out of the box, no need for any drivers.

I hope this works for ya.

jozi

doing a fresh instal of xp

was able to backup all my files on another pc, thank god for that

any advice now i have a new install going i'd like to make sure i get everything right, drivers utilities plugins etc
anyone any advice on that?

thanks,

Jozi

Mutant_Fruit

Before you blank your windows, download all the latest drivers you need.

Graphics, Motherboard, Soundcard, ethernet, USB2/USB1, firewire, router etc. Get it all ready and burned onto a disc and most importantly your favourite firewall app! (www.kerio.com for me).

Then do a full format, and reinstall windows. The first thing you should do after your install is to make sure your firewall app is up and running. Then install all the latest drivers that you need. THen connect to the net, and get all those Critical securuty packs windows releases. They do make them for a reason :-p.

Then burn a disc and see what the buffer is like. (ANd make sure your burner has DMA enabled!)

jozi

Have dma enabled and all the other stuff mentions earlier done

had all the latest drivers etc on my second hd, must burn them onto cd just in case!

just about done installing all drivers and some utilities will do windows update in the morning to late now.

found drivers of some sort for ata133 on my asus disc, i think i might have been missing them as i've never noticed them before.

i'll post again as soon as i get the pc sorted tomorrow and a cd burned.

thanks again,

jozi

jozi

And everything works fine again, just burned 2 cd's with the buffer level dropping no less than 90-95%.

dont know whats different now to what it was before but who cares it's fine now

thanks every one for your help

jozi

unkel

Originally posted by jozi
i done some system tweaking recently after a clean windows instal, al i did was stop services and change them to manual. followed instructions from the blackviper site

That is very risky if you don't know exactly what you are doing. Almost as dangerous as registry hacks, but these can be easily undone after a registry restore. Careful now everything is back working

jozi

i think i'll leave the pc alone for a while till it starts lowing down again.

www.blackviper.com, on that site they tell you what all the services do and some charts for different systems (gaming, server, etc) seems sound enough

vibe666

the critical point here that seems to have been missed was your 100% CPU usage when you weren't doing anything. I'm assuming you weren't trying to burn stuff while you were typing and it's just maxing out all the time. most likely spyware or a virus got in there doing it.

as was already said, get yourself a good firewall, antivirus and spybot or similar to keep your system clean, and do a bit of a service on it any time it starts to get slow.

jozi

the cpu was at 100% when burning a music cd and then i was getting buffer under runs, reinstalled windows everything seems fine now

have norton internet security 2004
spybot and ad-aware
should be suficient, rite?

jozi