Buffer Dropping. !Please Read!

[lt200420]

When burning DVD's (this does not happen when burning CD-R) my buffer (not device buffer) starts out at or near 100% but then gradually drops to around 1% or so (sometimes 0%). I thought it was my LG GH22NS30 so i bought a new ASUS DRW-24B1ST (with the new 1.04 firmware) and installed it today. but the same thing happens. The discs in use are Verbatim 16x (MCC 03RG20) and burn speed always set at 8x. Even though buffer drops like this I never get any Write Retries and the end result is always perfectly fine. I am just concerned and would like to know what the culprit may be.

 

My PC is fairly new too (just built it in September 2010 except for HardDrive(s)and Video Card (ATI 3870 Radeon HD). AMD 965BE 3.4ghz (stock), 4GB G. Skill Ripjaws 1600 DDR3 memory (2x2gb), ASRock 870 Extreme3 MOBO, 500GB 32mb cache Samsung ST3500320AS (OS Drive / Drive where all burning is done from) and 2TB 32mb cache Hitachi HDS722020ALA330. The only other devices plugged in is my keyboard and mouse (via 1 USB) and an XBOX360 controller. Typical programs running other than ImgBurn when i burn are Utorrent (I cap download at 300kb/s and upload is always at most 10kb/s), Trillian, Winamp, and 1 browser window. Having said all that i still have more than half of my memory free.

 

ImgBurn Log (see below) only shows 1 warning and it is the SPTD driver issue. Could the SPTD thing be the problem or what else could it be? Any help/info regarding my issue would be greatly appreciated. If any more info is needed i would be more than glad to get on top of it.

 

 

 

ImgBurn.log

Edited December 22, 2010 by lt200420

[spinningwheel]

There is a lot more to the log than what you posted. Open the log and copy and paste it to your response. Also, since all the operations you are doing access the hdd, try burning w/o doing all the extra stuff and close your browser.

 

spinner

[lt200420]

I have posted the only other log i could find (hope it helps). I did another burn with absoultely nothing else open but imgburn and still the same thing

 

 

There is a lot more to the log than what you posted. Open the log and copy and paste it to your response. Also, since all the operations you are doing access the hdd, try burning w/o doing all the extra stuff and close your browser.

 

spinner

ImgBurn.log

[spinningwheel]

Why are you closing down before you verify in most of your logs?

 

You can change your buffer size:

 

Tools>Settings>Build>Page 2(upper right)

[lt200420]

In the couple years since I discovered imgburn and been using it (by the way i use ONLY imgburn for all of my burning needs) I have NEVER used/checked verify and every disc results in perfection (whether it be bootable images (Windows), albums, movies (images or build) or data discs).

 

What should I change the buffer size to?

 

Why are you closing down before verify most times?

Edited December 22, 2010 by lt200420

[spinningwheel]

I like 100 mb myself.

 

Turn on verify, regardless of whether you use or have used it, it's there for a purpose and shows us info about the burn.

[lt200420]

i set buffer to 100 (log still says 40? i think (i dont know how to read the log lol)) and buffer never dropped below 50 to 60%. so that helped some...

 

did a verify after i burned (my bad on not checking verify during burn). it verified fine.

 

 

I like 100 mb myself.

 

Turn on verify, regardless of whether you use or have used it, it's there for a purpose and shows us info about the burn.

[spinningwheel]

[LIGHTNING UK!]

The buffer on the Build tab is a read buffer.

 

You might want a bigger Write buffer (processed data that's then sent directly to the drive) instead (or as well as!) and you can find that on the I/O tab -> Page 2.

[lt200420]

I set the read buffer back to 40 and set the write buffer to 100 and it starts out near 100% then drops to 0% quickly then when it is about half done burning it shot back up to near 100%. At about 75% done burning it stayed around 60-70%.

 

EDIT: I then tried maxing out the Write Buffer to 512 and it stayed near 100% for most of the burn but then when it was like 92% finished Buffer dropped to 0% and the status said something along the lines of Buffer Recovery mode yada yada and a minute or so later it finished successfully with no write errors

 

Any more suggestions?

 

 

The buffer on the Build tab is a read buffer.

 

You might want a bigger Write buffer (processed data that's then sent directly to the drive) instead (or as well as!) and you can find that on the I/O tab -> Page 2.

Edited December 23, 2010 by lt200420

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Revert to normal buffer sizes and then burn a disc in Discovery mode.

 

If you use a DVD-R, enable 'Test Mode' so you don't actually waste a disc.

 

The data burnt to the disc in that mode comes from memory so there should be no hdd access involved.

 

Assuming the buffer levels are stable when doing that, you'll know it's some issue with getting the data off your hdd quickly enough.

 

That's where you need to ensure you're not using the same physical hdd for anything else during the burn (even 'slow' downloading) and defrag it a few times.

 

Where possible when testing speed related issues, stick to burning images rather than little files (i.e. use Write mode and not Build mode - direct to disc). Reading little files will make your antivirus type programs kick in and that can cause buffer issues too.