My LG GSA-H55N use to work great now it takes about 2 to 3 hours to download a movie ( use to be about 20 min ). Takes a lot longer to burn too. I've been backing up my DVD's for several years now, so I did all the usual clean ups, removing then re-installing programs, reinstalling DMA for the best DMA transfer mode ( and making sure it's DMA not PIO ). But it's still slow. I kept an eye on it while it was downloading and saw that it would stop ( the light on the burner would go out ) then it would start back up again. It kept doing that and each time it would the estimated time for the DVD to complete would increase. I only just installed this burner about 8 months ago. They usually last a couple of years . Anyone have any info on this? Here are my specs: HP Pavilion 751n , Petium 4 CPU 1.80 GHz 1.82 GHZ,736 MG RAM. I'm running Windows XP with 80 GB storage, 40 GB are free. I have a 300 GB external storage drive where I download everything to. I'm using Sony 1-16x DVD-R's. Oh and I'm not sure but it seems to me everything was fine up to when I installed IE 8, I'm still not sure if that had anything to do with it but I uninstalled it anyway. But still no better. Any help will be appreciated.
Get a new burner. I'd be willing to bet that your burner is dying. You could try cleaning the lens first, but a dying drive would be my first guess. You don't rate a burner's life by length of ownership. If you are using the burner to rip as well as burn, you are possibly shortening it's life by 1/2.
I guess I was just hoping I could avoid the expense, but it seems that is what I'll have to do. At least I'll know after the new burner is put in, if that's the problem. Thanks for the reply.
It really sounds like your DMA mode is whacked, can you uninstall IE8 and see if there is a bug which is causing the problem? The timing of the installation and the slowdown in ripping/burning may not be a coincidence.
Also you might want to make sure your hard drive isn't corrupted by doing a scandisk (with the boxes to fix errors checked), file corruption will definitely slowdown your hard drive. Check the hard drive for fragmentation. One more thing, if you are using the external USB drive as the output drive, see if you can rip the dvd into your computer drive instead. Maybe you have USB transfer problems (sometimes the usb 2.0 can revert to usb 1.0) Years ago when I had a similar problem, I traced it to my hard drive and dvd rom where both set to master and hooked on the same IDE cable. DVD writers will last years even with heavy use. It's pratically new with only 8 months of use. You can definitely rule out your sony blank dvd's, those are the best available. I use them myself.
I ran scan disc, no help. Bought a new Writer and it does the same thing. Seems to stop , then takes forever to rip and burn the movie. Could it be my PC is dying? This is new ground for me. I usually buy a new computer because the old one becomes obsolete, not because it slows down to a crawl. Is that what happens? How can you find out?
I installed the new burner ( external ) on a 2.0 usb port. The old burner is internal. Device Manager shows my Enhanced USB. This slo-mo action sucks. I don't know what to try next.
I returned my external DVD burner and bought an internal . What the heck is a SATA cable? I don't think I have a connection for that. Are all burners like that now?
SATA (Serial ATA) is an alternate interface to PATA (parallel ATA). SATA is a more current interface. If you have an older motherboard it probably doesn't Have any SATA connectors. Sata uses a narrow cable, while PATA uses a 40 pin ribbon cable. If your motherboard does not have a SATA connection you will need a converter or take the drive back and get a PATA (sometimes referred to as IDE) compatible drive.
The new External burner I bought worked the same as the old burner. But when I used it with my new laptop, it worked great. So it's not my burner. I can only surmise that my CPU is slow, whether that's because it's old or something else is hindering it is something I guess I'll have to keep looking for. Oh well, thanks for the help.
