NEC DVD Burner Buffer Issues

BrettB

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Dec 15, 2005
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As a recent convert to the realm of AMD, I have been very pleased with gaming/office apps so far. However, I have had issues with DVD backup/burning since I upgraded my system. My NEC burner has been with me through 3 platforms, and never displayed this issue. Please move this topic if need be. Here are the components:

Antec True Power II 550
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra S939
NEC 3520A DVD+-R
AMD 64 3200+ Venice CG stepping
eVGA Geforce 7800GT 256MB VIVO
4X Corsair PC 3200 512 MB DDR dual channel
Sound Blaser Live! PCI
Maxtor 60 GB IDE 7200 System Drive
IBM 185 GB IDE 7200 Media Storage
Dell 20" Widescreen LCD 2005FPW

Here is the issue: When ripping a DVD, the device buffer does not fill up all the way. it also drop down to nearly nothing occasionally. Also, when burning a DVD, the device buffer is all over the map. It goes from 0-5% to 70-75% rapidly, but never really fills up. This adds about 33% more time to each of these jobs. Should I be using the nVidia replacement for the Windows IDE driver? I used it at first, then uninstalled it, and now have the Windows driver there. Same issue. I would not think that power is an issue, with a supply like that. All of my drives are IDE.

Anyone else see this problem? Any advice?
 

zogby

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Feb 20, 2006
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I noticed you had 2 IDE HD configuration.

Might want to change the IDE slave master , secondary primery config..
 

turpit

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Feb 12, 2006
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Ya, what zogby said.

If you have your burner and HDD sharing an IDE channel, that would account for what your problem, since the data has to be pumped down to the MB from the HDD and then back up to the burner over the same tape (IDE cable). Its a simple matter of bandwith--sharing a channel like that cuts the bandwith by at least half which would cause exacty the symptoms your seeing