Hi guys sorry if this has been answered a few times before but it's a real pain using the search on the guide now anything below 4 letters it throws back at you :hdspin:

Basically this is the score I have an acient K6-III 400 that just cant kick it anymore as I have just found out after buying my shiny new writer. What is the minimum speed AMD processor I can get away with for the moment for burning above 12x without constant buffer-underuns causing effectively 12x burning anyways.

I have knuckled it down to being the processor over anything else after installing ASPI again, nero again, you name all the little things in the faq but still no difference. I know it's not the HDD as when determining max speed I'm getting around 54x with just nero open and 34x with everything that I normally have running so that can keep up. As soon as I go to simulation nothing above 12x will work without underuns :(

BTW System at the moment:

Win XP Pro
AMD K6-III 400
256 MB RAM
GA-5AX
15.2 GB IBM something or other had it so many year I cant remember the model number
Samsung SD-608 (primary slave)
24x LiteON (secondary master)
Mitsumi 4804TE (secondary salve)

DMA all on

TIA

I understand if this get deleted sorry mods I have tried the search and skimming through a few pages last night.

This will depend on a few things like whether it is burnproof but for example I have bought a new 32x which in the literature says it needs a 500mhz cpu to run.

What speed is the burner, you mention 54x, 32x but not the speed of the burner or speed of the media you're using which is another big consideration.

HTH, T.

It is most likely not the CPU speed that is the problem, with the possible of exception of burning MP3s on the fly to Audio CD. This is one reason you probably didn't get any hits with the search function, CPU is usually not the bottleneck. To test this before burning run the System Monitor and watch it thoughout the burn. It will be ins Start/Accessories/System Tools if you have it installed. If not you can use Add/Remove Programs to install it.

TierraDelFuego, it's the 24x LiteOn as I wrote in the system spec ;)

Keymaster, I didnt think it could be the CPU until I tested everything else, cause I'm using XP just ctl-alt-del shows cpu usage during burns above 12x the CPU max's out and nero is using all the processing power under the process's tab.

I'm pretty sure that the CPU is the culprit here, either that or a dodgy nero install....should be ok though came with the liteon drive...

I used to write at 12x with a celeron 366, but that was on win 98, xp is a lot more demanding just to run itself. Maybe you can go back to 98 or upgrade your proc. as you thought.

I Too have my doubts that it's the CPU, more likely the busmaster perhaps not being able to handle the parallel requests for the IDE drives or not handling DMA very well.
I would double check the DMA settings and maybe try turning up the buffer size in Nero, it's in the file Menu > Prefs

MrMP, yeah I upgraded my oldmans machine a year ago with a 12x writer and that was burning OTF all day long and from the HDD at 12x on a P166 (o/c to 200, lmao) I didnt think it was going to cause a problem.

Hoss, settings for DMA are as follows and I presume they are correct:

IBM HDD (Primary Master) Ultra DMA Mode 2
Samsung SD-608 (Primary Slave) Multi-Word DMA Mode 2
Liteon LTR 24102B (Secondary Master) Ultra DMA Mode 2
Mitsumi 4804TE (Secondary Slave) Multi-Word DMA Mode 2

Tried playing with all the settings in Nero to death already and no joy :(

I think it maybe something to do with the fact that the busmaster drivers are built into xp and are crap, but there are no updated ones on ali.com.tw they just say to use the ones built into xp. I dont fancy going back to ME now especially after forking out for xp. Guess it's a nice new mobo now then and a cheap cpu till I get some more cash for a better cpu.

So anything should run it ok then eg Duron 800?

Thx for the replys guys :D

I have a Celeron 333mhz with 32mb ram and a Lite-on 24103s and LTD-163 and i can burn everything, apart from MP3 to audio, at 24x all day long.
I also have a Duron 750 with 320mb ram and i cant read, write or do anything above 20x so it goes to show it isnt processing power.

Download Sandra (www.sisoftware.demon.co.uk/sandra/) and benchmark your drives.

Also if you haven't flashed your motherboard with the latest update you may want to consider it: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/support/swali.htm Flashing a motherboard is risky, so unless your benchmark results indicate a problem the BIOS update may fix, you should avoid it. If you are certain about your plans to upgrade motherboads, you have less to lose from a bad flash however.

Yep the DMA looks fine m8 and I higly doubt it's XP's BM drivers or lots of others would be having similar probs.
Don't know it's certainly puzzling, I would bench all the drives, memory etc as KM suggested.

ian b, thx m8 strange world aint it !!!

Keymaster, already got the latest bios on the mobo flasheds it loads in the 2.5 years :)

Just downloading that Sandra and will let you know, I think it's crap busmaster drivers making the cpu do alot more work than it should, I have been following the cpu usage at different speeds and it goes steadily up to about 80-90% usage at 12x and then above that there just aint the power there to keep it goin.

Hoss, the thing with this mobo is the ide drivers arnt available from Ali for XP (as they are for 9x) they sat to use the ones built into XP I think this is where the problem may lie.

ok just run the system performace thingy in Sandra the most alarming thing I can see is this:

The system has no enabled SMBus/i2c/BMB controller or Sandra does not support it. Most modern systems have at least one.

I'll keep pluging away at this but I think I see a new mobo comming

ok, what about a 200mhz Pentium MMX computer (I mean this is really ancient--with only 64mb ram) I'm getting errors with this new 16x burner I bought. Still nothing to do with CPU?

You have at least 3 if not 4 potential bottlenecks; 1) CPU, 2) RAM, 3) HD speed (possibly not even 3600 RPM) and 4) IDE interface (very likely not UDMA). Neither Hoss nor I stated disk burning at high speeds had nothing to do with the CPU speed. We simply agreed that burning at a maximum of 12x was probably not caused by a 400mHZ CPU.

Originally posted by mini-me
ok just run the system performace thingy in Sandra the most alarming thing I can see is this:

The system has no enabled SMBus/i2c/BMB controller or Sandra does not support it. Most modern systems have at least one.

I'll keep pluging away at this but I think I see a new mobo comming

mini-me. I'm beginning to think you're right. It's more a case of the motherboard than the CPU. One other solution, since your budget is a consideration, is to add a PCI IDE controller. For about $20 to $30 US you can add an ATA100 controller that should solve your problem.

I have a samsung 12x cdwriter. It is burnproof but yet i still get buffer underun!!
I am using the basic adaptec version 4 or WinonCD by Roxio.

With both I can burn safely using 8x from the harddrive and if I want to do a cd to cd copy, i can do it on 12x!

Does the program have to support the buffer underun option becasue I use a program called mp3 cd burner and I can burn from the harddrive to the cd using 12x.

I have a 40 gig harddrive and a pentium 4 1.7ghz processor

thanx

Originally posted by mini-me
TierraDelFuego, it's the 24x LiteOn as I wrote in the system spec ;)

Keymaster, I didnt think it could be the CPU until I tested everything else, cause I'm using XP just ctl-alt-del shows cpu usage during burns above 12x the CPU max's out and nero is using all the processing power under the process's tab.

I'm pretty sure that the CPU is the culprit here, either that or a dodgy nero install....should be ok though came with the liteon drive...

I agree with Keymaster; it is not the CPU, unless the CPU is defective in some way.
Just before I got my new PC about nine months ago, I burned successfully at 12X on my old first generation Pentium 200MMX PC; granted it had 64 megs, but still...

In your case, it could be a dodgy install as you say, or some other strange software or unexplained hardware issue.
A more likely cause, however, other than DMA not being enabled which ahs already been mentioned, is a badly fragmented hard drive...

VEFF, I am beging to think more and more it is duff mobo ide drivers built into xp using alot more power than they should really need.

HDD has been defragged more time in the last few days than in the last year, lmao so it aint that, dma is cool, and I have completely reoved the software and as much as I can see out of the registry then re-installed still to no joy.

The reason I first thought it was cpu based was due to the really high cpu usage while burning (12x = 80%-90%, 16x+ = 100%)

However due to the Sandra result and the fact my mobo manufacturer dotn supply ide drivers cause they say the basic xp ones are fine, I think it may be something to do with these.

I burn at 16x with no problem with my P2 366Mhz 64mb comp

Originally posted by gurmukh
[BI have a samsung 12x cdwriter. It is burnproof but yet i still get buffer underun!!...

Does the program have to support the buffer underun option becasue I use a program called mp3 cd burner and I can burn from the harddrive to the cd using 12x...
[/B]

The burnware must support Burnproof.

After replying to this post the other day it got me back to trying to find out why the data transfer on my Duron 750 was so bad, and FINALLY ive found out why. In my BIOS the power-management was disabled and i found that if i enable it to ACPI then i can read, write and do everything else at full speed. Now, in Nero CD Speed my CPU usage is at 1x=0%, 2x=1%, 4x=2% and 8x=5% where as before it was 1x=5%, 2x=10%, 4x=20% and 8x=40%. Try it, it may help.

Originally posted by Keymaster


The burnware must support Burnproof.

I have a samsung sw 212b. I am told that this is a burnproof cd writer, what is "burnware"?

The software which is doing the burning.

surely adaptec or nero must support burnproof technology?

They sure do, although in most cases it is an option in the burnware. Are you sure the Burnproof option is selected? Check the help files.

mini-me could you please email me

cheers