I was rather happy that I finally made the move to DVD burning, but I was worried since it seems to be burning ridiculously slow! Now, things to consider would be that,

(software points) I believe I've only burned backup and linux isos with my drive using alcohol 120, which reports the speed being something like x0.2 which is rather painful......

(hardware points) I had used 40pin IDE cables originally because I didn't have any 80pins around at the time, but I recently upgraded to 80pins and rearranged the wiring, stealthing and such, but it didn't seem to do any different,

(media points) I've only been using media by Maxell (as my father sorta works for them, and sorta get stuff free (no I can't get you any)) anyway, the labelling on the dvd says it works for 1x 2x 4x 8x

(firmware points) i upgraded to the 1.06 firmware right off the bat, think i should revert? This is the most up to date (as of Aug 19 06 (the day i posted this and looked on NEC's site))

It sems like a buffer problem. Please post your full specs so we can more closely examine different things. Also is Alcohol the only program you have tried for burning?

Try Burning a CD, see if its Just DVDs you get a slow speed on. Are you burning on DVD-R, DVD+R..etc?

ADD How long did it take to burn the ISO? It could be a software error, but if its actually that slow, it maybe the hardware.

If you have a software CD that came with the drive, you could take Sn0wMan's advice and try the burning software on the CD for a comparison.

Alright, thanks for the advice everyone, +rep around soon as I finish this post...


System Specs:

Opteron 165 @~2.5GHz
Asus A8N-SLi Premium
2Gb of GSkill ram (dunno timings or model, but that should hardly matter)
Connect3D Radeon X850XT PE (that should be really unneccessary)
as far as hds go, I really don't know, I usually burn the images from my large, newer drive, but my OS and most programs (likely alcohol) are on my smaller HD which is rather old and likely to be meeting a timely death soon...

I'll try and burn a CD speed comparison if I can find something useful to burn...



EDIT: Sorry, Nerdz, I'll try repping you later, it seems you are too kind to me and I just can't stop thanking you!

Hey Hibiki and Snowman, it seems we all joined at the same month, makes us brothers or something right?

Quote: Originally Posted by Gzim Alright, thanks for the advice everyone, +rep around soon as I finish this post... System Specs: Opteron 165 @~2.5GHz Asus A8N-SLi Premium 2Gb of GSkill ram (dunno timings or model, but that should hardly matter) Connect3D Radeon X850XT PE (that should be really unneccessary) as far as hds go, I really don't know, I usually burn the images from my large, newer drive, but my OS and most programs (likely alcohol) are on my smaller HD which is rather old and likely to be meeting a timely death soon... I'll try and burn a CD speed comparison if I can find something useful to burn... EDIT: Sorry, Nerdz, I'll try repping you later, it seems you are too kind to me and I just can't stop thanking you! Hey Hibiki and Snowman, it seems we all joined at the same month, makes us brothers or something right?

It worked then (the CD burn?)

Quote: Originally Posted by Nerdz It worked then (the CD burn?)

Sorry...I'll find some mp3s I want to play in my car and then I'll come back with a post on it's performance...


The ISO burning took around 2hour+ I believe...and it was something like ~2gb, that IS slow right?

Iposted in an earlier post boutsomthing like this that happened to me, go to your drive's manufacterer's website and download theyre latest firmware(drivers) for your rive and I bet it gets better.

Quote: Originally Posted by NoSlak Iposted in an earlier post boutsomthing like this that happened to me, go to your drive's manufacterer's website and download theyre latest firmware(drivers) for your rive and I bet it gets better.

Quote: Originally Posted by Gzim (firmware points) i upgraded to the 1.06 firmware right off the bat, think i should revert?

I will update my original post with the fact that the 1.06 firmware is the most up to date.

Wait a second.. you said you burned an Linux ISO right? Well thats the same as burning a CD. Did it go fast then? It should Be 48x I thought you burned a DVD Linux Iso...

The only other thing I can think of:

1) Downgrade to Default
2) Try it on another Computer.
3) Try another burner on the current problematic computer.

If that doesnt work, Im out of ideas. The only other thing I can suggest is to return it.

Check your BIOS settings and make sure that DMA access is enable for that IDE channel.

alright, well, the problem seems to be that the burn will freeze indefinitely at either 99 or 100 percent and sometimes never finish...this seems to occur in both Nero and Alcohol120

Have you tried a different IDE channel? Can you give some sort of a checklist of the things that you have tried so far?

I had an old Sony burner that crapped out like that, I replaced the unit without making any adjustments with Windows or the burning software and the problem left with the old burner.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wMan Can you give some sort of a checklist of the things that you have tried so far?

First post has all my major changes and thoughts, but have since tried:

Quote: Originally Posted by thedemonxanth Check your BIOS settings and make sure that DMA access is enable for that IDE channel.

Done, was already set.

Quote: Originally Posted by Nerdz Wait a second.. you said you burned an Linux ISO right? Well thats the same as burning a CD. Did it go fast then? It should Be 48x I thought you burned a DVD Linux Iso...

Burning itself goes very quickly as it should, but it now doesn't want give me the final "I'm done, go ahead and eject" dialog.

Quote: Originally Posted by Hibiki I had an old Sony burner that crapped out like that, I replaced the unit without making any adjustments with Windows or the burning software and the problem left with the old burner.

I'm sure you can sympathize with me when I say that I'll only consider RMA when all else fails (although it looks like it's getting close to that...)

Back to

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wman Have you tried a different IDE channel?

Currently my burner is on it's own on the secondary channel, I'll mix it up next time I'm elbow deep in IDE cables and Hard drives (soon)

Have you tried burning without the finalize disc option selected? Do you have any other discs you can try? I would try a 16x speed disc and see what happens.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wMan Have you tried burning without the finalize disc option selected? Do you have any other discs you can try? I would try a 16x speed disc and see what happens.

Keep forgetting to note the different problems with each media:
CDs burn fine, don't finalize
DVDs burn slow, take while to finalize

I would say it has to be hardware. You seem to be very smart and nothing suggested here helped or you already tried it, so RMA the sucker if you can.

Quote: Originally Posted by Sn0wMan I would say it has to be hardware. You seem to be very smart and nothing suggested here helped or you already tried it, so RMA the sucker if you can.

I'd rep you for the butt kissing but appearently I've done so too recently already...I bought it OEM from TigerDirect...not sure of their RMA process or if NEC will honor OEM purchases...have to search my inbox..

Product page says it's covered by NEC for a year, but the page seems to no longer state that it is OEM so...it might not mean anything....damn....still hoping the channel change is a magical answer for this..

I didn't RMA that Sony, the thing was too busted to get past writing the TOC at the end of a burn. Instead I junked it and bought a new Sony dual-layer burner. I later used that new burner as a hand-me-down for another computer and bought a quieter Samsung dual-layer burner.