I have been tryng to write at 4x on mirror dvds and still takes 30 minutes with nero and i get coasters. (pioneer 105)

Also when i am writing i am also downloading on ftp but the writing slows it down to next to nothing is there a way to set priorities so that the writing does not use everything on xp

Really need more info on your PC spec, RAM and Processor.

At 4x burning should take about 15 mins, depending on file sizes.

Reguarding multi tasking, burning is pretty heavy on the processorand will make any other tasks slower. Only suggestion is a higher spec machine or burn at times when you don't need the machine for other things, like overnight.

Man people who try to multitask while DVD Burning are just asking for trouble. DVD Writing is a very sensitive process that (as mentioned above) is very demanding of your PC's resources. There is no way to make your writer less demanding on your PC unless you invest a bunch of money in upgrades. I would not even attempt to do something like that unless I had a 3GHZ processor and about 1GB of DDR RAM.

Can you burn at 4 X, when you are not running other appz. ?

If not, it could be the way your drives are configured.
On my brother's machine, the only way he could achieve 4 X, was to have the 105 as the master on the Sec IDE channel. It didn't like being the slave. (cant blame it really :D)

As to multitasking, whilst burning ... tend to agree with the above, although you will finf folk who claim to do this all the time..