Hi, I use Nero, and a week ago I started having problems with burning CDs. The Recorder Buffer empties all the time. The CDs still come out ok, but they take much longer and the recorder buffer empties and refills throughout the burning procress. The burning also effects the OS by creating pauses, everything responds a little slower. I've tried killing all the background programs: eMule, KaZaA, ICQ, Firewall, Antivirus, etc... I also disconnected from the internet - Nothing helps. I tried burning at lower speeds - That didn't help as well. Notice that I've been burning heavy for 6 months without any problem, and that it suddenly appeared (no, I didn't change the Nero version or install new drivers \ firmware for the cdr drive). I also checked the Task Manager to see if there's any process that consumes resources, but found nothing. What could be the problem? How can I diagnose it?
1. Harddrive fragmentation 2. Check that both your HDD and CDR have DMA enabled 3. There are also memory and buffer settings within Nero too!
1) did that, didn't help 2) Where do I check that? 3) I didn't change anything, yet the problem suddenly appeared. What settings should I play with? Thanks!
1. Control Panel 2. System Settings 3. Hardware Tab 4. Device Manager 5. IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers 6. Primary IDE Channel --> Properties --> Advanced, make sure everything syas DMA If Available 7. Secondary IDE Channel --> Properties --> Advanced, make sure everything syas DMA If Available 8. Reboot if need be
Well, I changed the setting for my secondary IDE channel (Device 1) to "DMA if available" but even after restart it's still on "PIO mode". Might this be the cause of the problem? How can I make switch the transfer mode to DMA? Oh, and I found out that at x12 speed it works with no buffer underrun (woopti-doo), yet the computer still suffers resource loss.
Ya most configurations can handle 8x with no sweat, some can even hit 12x. Not so common to find an older system running PIO that can do 16x. If you have enabled PIO within windows, the next thing to check is (1) Does your burner run in PIO? and more likely (2) is DMA disabled in your BIOS?
Hi, I found the problem. What Microsoft has to say about it: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817472 The solution (for XP at least): Under Control Panel \ System \ Hardware \ Device Manager \ IDE ATA\ATAPI Controllers Check the IDE Channels (right click + properties). Under Advanced Settings check the "Current Transfer Mode" of each device. If one of them is "PIO Mode" what you should do is close the properties window and delete (yes, delete) the IDE channel. Now either restart or press Action \ Scan for hardware changes. Win XP will reinstall the IDE channel and will restore the Ultra DMA transfer mode. If this doesn't help - make sure your bios is set to autodetect the transfer mode.
