DVD burner buffer - hd related?

[songoku]

My burners are a liteon 832s and a liteon 1213s.

When I use both burners at the same time AND burn a dvd faster then 4x or a cd faster then 30x, my system can not keep the speed. For example, in Nero has two display bars that represent buffers, One for the program and one for the burner. If I have both burners burn a dvd faster then 4x or a cd faster then 30x. 1.) I can not use my system. Other wise the buffer level will shoot down and I loose the current burning speed, thus a slower burn. 2.) The burners compete for data from my drives and I would assume this would make a bad burn or a low quality burn (so far everything is readable).

But the point is I would think that a hard drive could easily send data faster then my burners could write it, especially my raptor.

System Specs -
AMD Athlon 64 3200
Asus K8V SE Deluxe
Kingston Hyperx 1GB
74GB raptor (8mb, 10000, sata)
200GB Maxtor (8mb, 7200, ide)
80GB Hitachi (2mb, 7200, ide)
XJ-HD166S
851s@832s
1213s

Here is my controller setup.

Promise SATA150 tx2plus
Channel 1 - Raptor
Channel 2 - Maxtor 200GB

Onboard VIA 6420
Channel 1 - Hitachi 80GB

Onboard ide -
Channel 1 -Master- XJ-HD166S (DVD Reader NOT a Burner)
Channel 1 -Slave- 851s@832s
Channel 2 -Master- 1213s


When burning, it does matter if i burn the same data or different data. I get the same result. It also doesn’t matter if I am burning from different hard-drives.

I did some benchmarking -
HD_Speed v1.3.2.40
Raptor - 68mb/s
Maxtor - 53mb/s
Hitchi - 44mb/s

I burn a lot so this is an annoyance that can not go unheard. Any ideas?


Main System Specs
AMD Athlon64 3200
Asus K8V SE Deluxe
ATI Radeon 9800XT
Kingston Hyperx 1GB
SB Audigy
SATA150 TX2plus
WD740GD
Samsung 172X

 

[Crashman]

Each cable can serve only one drive at a time. That means the buffer gets used up while the other drive is being accessed.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[songoku]

there is only one burner per cable.

Main System Specs
AMD Athlon64 3200
Asus K8V SE Deluxe
ATI Radeon 9800XT
Kingston Hyperx 1GB
SB Audigy
SATA150 TX2plus
WD740GD
Samsung 172X

 

[Crashman]

Oh, and you're burning from the hard drive, which is also on a separate cable?

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[songoku]

Yes, separate cable and even separate controller.

Main System Specs
AMD Athlon64 3200
Asus K8V SE Deluxe
ATI Radeon 9800XT
Kingston Hyperx 1GB
SB Audigy
SATA150 TX2plus
WD740GD
Samsung 172X

 

[Crashman]

Hmm, assuming 70MB/s continuous transfer, that's 35MB/s/drive, since it switches back and forth feeding data to one drive and then the other it might just be the added delay of all that switching causing the problem.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[songoku]

8x is only 11mb/s which means 22mb/s combined. My drives should do that easy. Could it be that i have to many devices on my pci bus? if so. how are 16x burns even possible?

Main System Specs
AMD Athlon64 3200
Asus K8V SE Deluxe
ATI Radeon 9800XT
Kingston Hyperx 1GB
SB Audigy
SATA150 TX2plus
WD740GD
Samsung 172X

 

[Crashman]

It could be PCI bus saturation, but I think it's more likely that there's some latency involved in the process when you're feeding multiple drives.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[pat]

Must be VIA...

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[songoku]

meaning that i should try burning when all my hardrives are connected to my promise controller? or i should get a new controller card?

Main System Specs
AMD Athlon64 3200
Asus K8V SE Deluxe
ATI Radeon 9800XT
Kingston Hyperx 1GB
SB Audigy
SATA150 TX2plus
WD740GD
Samsung 172X

 

[pat]

Well...That was a word for Crashman, because I know what he think of VIA. I think that you should be able to burn at more than 4X, but, it is a lot of data switching between channel so maybe it is a limitation of the PCI bus. Did you install VIA 4in1 drivers? Maybe one of your drive is in PIO mode instead of DMA which use a lot of CPU time. Check that in device manager.

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!