Okay, I'm stumped...help!

[shadyb1]

This problem's got me stumped:

I have two cd/dvd drives in my home-built computer:

Pioneer DVR-107
Lite-On 52x CD burner

I originally had a NEC DVD burner set as a master and the Lite On set as a slave. I started getting some wierd symptoms when trying to burn a disc - the buffer would steadily decrease (sometimes I'd get buffer underrun errors) and also the CPU usage would hover around 60% in the task bar, although the system idle reads 95% free, and there were no processes using that much CPU. The burn times would also be 4x what they should have taken. I tried all kinds of stuff and eventually sent the NEC drive back and got the Pioneer.

I switched out the drives and set the Pioneer as the slave and the Lite On as the master, and everything's worked fine for two months. All of a sudden, the SAME exact symptoms have returned...it now takes me 10 minutes to burn a CD at 52x and 30 minutes to burn a DVD at 4x speed. And I'm getting all kinds of wierd buffer and CPU activity.

I've tried everything...I've switched the IDE cable, used five different kinds of software, and made sure the BIOS settings are correct. Windows recognizes the drives fine. I have no spyware, adware, trojans/viruses. The thing that worries me the most is the CPU usage when there are no apparent processes using any CPU.

Any suggestions?

Here's my system:

P4 2.8C 800MHZ
Swiftech MX478-V and Vantec Tornado fan
ASUS P4S800D
1 GB Kingston DDR400 (dual channel)
WD 250GB SATA 7200RPM
WD 160GB IDE 7200RPM
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB
Pioneer DVR-107 8x DVD+/-R
Lite On 52x32x52 CD Burner
Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7.1
Hauppauge PVR-250 TV Tuner
Windows XP SP1a
Antec SX-835
Antec 350W PS

[MitaDC]

AHH I hate that reset form button, needs to be removed from the forums, just tell people to hit Ctrl+A then press delete.

Ok here goes my post again. Have u tried to maybe remove the Pioneer drive and try it that way? I had the same problem kinda with a samsung drive I own. 52x burn speed and it ran at like 3-8x all the time. Got a lite-on and no more problems. Have u ran adaware or spybot lately? Maybe there is some spyware hogging your CPU. Anyways just throwing stuff out there. GL

[rpertusio]

(i sympathize with your 'reset button' woes, MitaDC)

shayb1, I would first remove the Pioneer, as MitaDC has suggested.

You might also find some helpful information in your event logs (look for errors/warnings in 'system' or 'application' logs):
start menu -> run... -> eventvwr.msc

Thirdly, if you visit the Device Manager:
start menu -> run... -> devmgmt.msc
find your IDE controllers and view the 'properties' of it. Somewhere in there you should be able to see the 'mode' that each channel is in. For example: Master: UDMA-5 Slave: PIO.. etc. Any information you find in there might be helpful.

- rp

[LeftCoast]

I agree with rpertusio; I think the drives may be in PIO mode.

You may also want to try jumpering the drives as cable select rather than master-slave. Just a thought...

[jl123]

Pretty much what the guys already said should help but if it doesn't you might want to check your ide cable and like they said try one drive out at a time. I've seen ide connectors halfway out on some peoples comps when they were having problems reading cds. You just never know.