Compaq CD burner slow....

Greetings. I have a Compaq Presario with a built-in 24x burner, and
bundled Roxio CD creater (version 5?) The problem is that the process
of burning CDs are quite slow. I use properly rated blank CDs, and
always burn them from a hard disk image. When I burn a CD though, I
can see that the drive alternately speed up and slow down, and
burning a music CD takes close to 20 minutes. This seems awfully
slow for a 24x drive.

I used the default settings on the Roxio software, which aren't
many.

Is it normal for a burner to behave this way?

My system is 1.2GHz celeron, 256MB and XP.

I looked around in this NG and the HP support pages and don't seem
to find any mention.

Thanks...

---------------------
kwong (at) nbnet (dot) nb (dot) ca
---------------------

Copying or creating audio CDs is always slower than data CDs. The computer has
to convert the digital hard disk image to the format required for essentially
analog audio as recorded on the CD. This conversion is processor-intensive. It
would go much faster on a 2.5+GHz Pentium 4, for example... Ben Myers

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 11:51:28 GMT, "K. Wing Wong" wrote:


Greetings. I have a Compaq Presario with a built-in 24x burner, and
bundled Roxio CD creater (version 5?) The problem is that the process
of burning CDs are quite slow. I use properly rated blank CDs, and
always burn them from a hard disk image. When I burn a CD though, I
can see that the drive alternately speed up and slow down, and
burning a music CD takes close to 20 minutes. This seems awfully
slow for a 24x drive.

I used the default settings on the Roxio software, which aren't
many.

Is it normal for a burner to behave this way?

My system is 1.2GHz celeron, 256MB and XP.

I looked around in this NG and the HP support pages and don't seem
to find any mention.

Thanks...

---------------------
kwong (at) nbnet (dot) nb (dot) ca
---------------------

Thanks for responding. I would think that since my old 486 could play
a CD with no problem, that the task of converting the data back and
forth should be a breeze for the much faster celeron? I wonder if
this might be a buffering problem? Or just crappy OEM burner (I think
the brand is LITE something or another...).

Ben Myers wrote:

Copying or creating audio CDs is always slower than data CDs. The computer has
to convert the digital hard disk image to the format required for essentially
analog audio as recorded on the CD. This conversion is processor-intensive. It
would go much faster on a 2.5+GHz Pentium 4, for example... Ben Myers

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 11:51:28 GMT, "K. Wing Wong" wrote:


Greetings. I have a Compaq Presario with a built-in 24x burner, and
bundled Roxio CD creater (version 5?) The problem is that the process
of burning CDs are quite slow. I use properly rated blank CDs, and
always burn them from a hard disk image. When I burn a CD though, I
can see that the drive alternately speed up and slow down, and
burning a music CD takes close to 20 minutes. This seems awfully
slow for a 24x drive.

I used the default settings on the Roxio software, which aren't
many.

Is it normal for a burner to behave this way?

My system is 1.2GHz celeron, 256MB and XP.

I looked around in this NG and the HP support pages and don't seem
to find any mention.

Thanks...

---------------------
kwong (at) nbnet (dot) nb (dot) ca
---------------------

--

In my system, 800mhz and 320MB available RAM, I can copy and burn an average
audio CD in about 6 min, with a 40x read and 32 write burner. Are the files on
the HDD being converted from wav? I haven't tried that yet--I'd think that
would add to the time considerably.

Also using a program called EndItAll (thanks for the suggestion, Tom Scales),
which closes background programs. Without it I made almost nothing but
coasters--out of my last 40 or 50 burned CDs I've had only one coaster....

Dale

Playing an audio CD is entirely different. Once the computer initiates the
playing of the CD, there is minimal involvement by the computer and its
processor. The audio stream passes from the CD-ROM drive over a thin 3-wire
cable directly to the audio chip which simply passes it on to the speakers or
headphones. In other words, playing an audio CD requires no data conversion,
hence the minimal processor involvement.

You might also look at the amount of memory in the computer itself. For Windows
95/98/ME, figure 128MB to be comfortable. For Windows 2000 or XPee, 256MB is
the practical minimum, despite whatever hype Microsoft vomits out regarding
memory requirements.

LiteOn is and has been a leading OEM manufacturer of all kinds of computer parts
for many years. Their CD-ROM drives are generally decent quality, and their CD
burners are generally well-regarded. Of course, HP/Compaq could well have
talked LiteOn into manufacturing a cost-reduced, hence crappier unit. LiteOn
DOES have its own reputation at stake, and shouldn't deliver crapola drives to
its customers, even if the customers want it. Instead, I would wonder about
both the quality of the other components in the Presario, long Compaq's
bottom-of-the-line cheap consumer box. Also, if you are running 98 or ME, your
system may be missing some better drivers for its ATA/IDE subsystem. Check the
Intel web site for 810 or 815 chipset drivers, or the VIA website for drivers
for various VIA chips... Ben Myers

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 14:27:00 GMT, "K. Wing Wong" wrote:


Thanks for responding. I would think that since my old 486 could play
a CD with no problem, that the task of converting the data back and
forth should be a breeze for the much faster celeron? I wonder if
this might be a buffering problem? Or just crappy OEM burner (I think
the brand is LITE something or another...).

Ben Myers wrote:

Copying or creating audio CDs is always slower than data CDs. The computer has
to convert the digital hard disk image to the format required for essentially
analog audio as recorded on the CD. This conversion is processor-intensive. It
would go much faster on a 2.5+GHz Pentium 4, for example... Ben Myers

On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 11:51:28 GMT, "K. Wing Wong" wrote:


Greetings. I have a Compaq Presario with a built-in 24x burner, and
bundled Roxio CD creater (version 5?) The problem is that the process
of burning CDs are quite slow. I use properly rated blank CDs, and
always burn them from a hard disk image. When I burn a CD though, I
can see that the drive alternately speed up and slow down, and
burning a music CD takes close to 20 minutes. This seems awfully
slow for a 24x drive.

I used the default settings on the Roxio software, which aren't
many.

Is it normal for a burner to behave this way?

My system is 1.2GHz celeron, 256MB and XP.

I looked around in this NG and the HP support pages and don't seem
to find any mention.

Thanks...

---------------------
kwong (at) nbnet (dot) nb (dot) ca
---------------------

--

But is it burning at 24x? And is that 24x read or write? Though i guess
the latter?

There are many, many factors involving the speed of burning a CD.
OS, processor, RAM, and what you are burning.

If that computer has WinME, that could be an issue, 2K or XP will burn
a CD faster on the same hardware than 9x. Any background processes
running will also slow down the burning process. Also check and make
sure that DMA is checked in the device manager. You have a 1.2
Celeron. Celerons are junk processors. Pentiums are the best for
burning/ripping, then Athlons, Celerons and finally Durons. We won't
even Discuss VIA's crap. Now I am not sure how much level cache that
Celeron, but I belive its 256. If it were a P4 with an L2 of 512, the
preformance would be way better. A 1.0 ghz P3 is going to burn faster
than that 1.2 celeron. Of course more RAM is always better, you can
never have too much RAM. And finally, what are you burning. MP3 to
audio CD takes longer than Wave to audio CD. MPEG movies always takes
longer than audio CD's. 500MB of porn jpeg's burn onto a data CD
realitivitly quick compared to audio and video. All important factors
to consider.

20 min tou burn a CD sounds like its burning at 4x, look around at
your settings and make sure 24x is the selected burn speed, I belive
Roxio defaults to the slowest setting unless you tell it different.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for responding. I realize that 1.3 Celeron isn't top of
the line CPU, though I thought it would more than handle burning
CDs. I am running XP with 256MB ram, and no background processes
other than the anti-virus and firewall. I also leave the computer
alone when it is doing the burning. I am just doing straight
music CD burning, none of the MP3, or porn JPGs.

The Roxio interface says speed is 24x. I will check the DMA
setting though.

the yeti wrote:

There are many, many factors involving the speed of burning a CD.
OS, processor, RAM, and what you are burning.

If that computer has WinME, that could be an issue, 2K or XP will burn
a CD faster on the same hardware than 9x. Any background processes
running will also slow down the burning process. Also check and make
sure that DMA is checked in the device manager. You have a 1.2
Celeron. Celerons are junk processors. Pentiums are the best for
burning/ripping, then Athlons, Celerons and finally Durons. We won't
even Discuss VIA's crap. Now I am not sure how much level cache that
Celeron, but I belive its 256. If it were a P4 with an L2 of 512, the
preformance would be way better. A 1.0 ghz P3 is going to burn faster
than that 1.2 celeron. Of course more RAM is always better, you can
never have too much RAM. And finally, what are you burning. MP3 to
audio CD takes longer than Wave to audio CD. MPEG movies always takes
longer than audio CD's. 500MB of porn jpeg's burn onto a data CD
realitivitly quick compared to audio and video. All important factors
to consider.

20 min tou burn a CD sounds like its burning at 4x, look around at
your settings and make sure 24x is the selected burn speed, I belive
Roxio defaults to the slowest setting unless you tell it different.

Hope this helps.

--

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
kwong (at) nbnet (dot) nb (dot) ca
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't think I would call a Celeron junk. Low cost? Yes. High-performing?
Not really. Sufficient for many tasks? Yes, but maybe not the best for ripping
CDs. I know many people with Celeron machines who use them blissfully for
everyday office tasks. Is the Celery good for gaming? Nope. But junk? No
way!

The suggestion to make sure that DMA is enabled for the CD-ROM drive is an
excellent one, which I forgot... Ben Myers

On 5 Sep 2003 11:52:52 -0700, (the yeti) wrote:

There are many, many factors involving the speed of burning a CD.
OS, processor, RAM, and what you are burning.

If that computer has WinME, that could be an issue, 2K or XP will burn
a CD faster on the same hardware than 9x. Any background processes
running will also slow down the burning process. Also check and make
sure that DMA is checked in the device manager. You have a 1.2
Celeron. Celerons are junk processors. Pentiums are the best for
burning/ripping, then Athlons, Celerons and finally Durons. We won't
even Discuss VIA's crap. Now I am not sure how much level cache that
Celeron, but I belive its 256. If it were a P4 with an L2 of 512, the
preformance would be way better. A 1.0 ghz P3 is going to burn faster
than that 1.2 celeron. Of course more RAM is always better, you can
never have too much RAM. And finally, what are you burning. MP3 to
audio CD takes longer than Wave to audio CD. MPEG movies always takes
longer than audio CD's. 500MB of porn jpeg's burn onto a data CD
realitivitly quick compared to audio and video. All important factors
to consider.

20 min tou burn a CD sounds like its burning at 4x, look around at
your settings and make sure 24x is the selected burn speed, I belive
Roxio defaults to the slowest setting unless you tell it different.

Hope this helps.