Extremely slow burn speed and an inexplicable solution

[George Austin]

I'm using Windows XP Pro x64 edition with ImgBurn 2.4.1.0. My drive is a Lite-On LH-20A1s with firmware 9L08. This error has occurred with three different DVD+R 1x-4x blanks by Verbatim (all MCC-002-00), as well as one Fujifilm 1x-16x DVD+R (PRODISC-R05-01).

 

So I tried to burn a DVD from an image file named DVD.iso using ImgBurn last night. My average burn speed was something ridiculous - around 0.3x. After a few minutes, I aborted the burn and tried a new disc - same problem. I aborted, and tried a Fujifilm disc and got the same result.

 

I thought to myself, "My friend Jon is paranoid about Nero's stuff - maybe he's right, even though I've never had a problem. Nero 6 OEM is messing with something!" I proceeded to remove the only Ahead software I had on my system: Nero Vision Express and Nero Showtime. They don't have anything to do with burning, but it can't hurt, right? I rebooted my computer, returned ImgBurn to all of its default settings, popped in another MCC-002-00 blank, and it worked like a champ.

 

So today, I wanted to make another copy of this DVD, and when I fired up ImgBurn with a MCC-002-00 in the tray, it started burning at 0.2x-0.4x again. Rather than get mad and have another coaster, I killed Folding at Home SMP and NOD32's real-time protection. ImgBurn jumped to 1.8x while NOD32's window was loading, but then dropped again. I opened up Task Manager, and saw that ImgBurn was using 0 CPU time.

 

However, while Task Manager was loading, I noticed that my burn rate had jumped again. I was curious, so I started dragging the Task Manager window around, shaking it back and forth and making explorer.exe (and taskmgr.exe) load the processor a bit. ImgBurn.exe also started using CPU cycles, and my burn speed eventually climbed to 4x - the maximum speed for my discs. "Hooray," I thought, "I'm cured!" I stopped dragging Task Manager around only to watch my burn speed plummet again.

 

I repeated the "shake a window and then stop" process half a dozen times to convince myself that this wasn't coincidence. The read speed during verification was similarly slow, and shaking a window fixed this problem as well.

 

What's happening here!?

 

I've used earlier versions of ImgBurn with no issue. Both my chipset drivers (nForce4) and burner firmware have stayed constant since the time that I used both ImgBurn 2.4.0.0 and whatever older version comes with DVDFlick 1.2.2.1. Other than Windows updates, it seems like the only relevant thing that's changed is ImgBurn's version.

 

I still have ImgBurn 2.4.0.0 on my computer (in DVDFlick 1.3 Beta's sub-directory), but I'd like to see if anyone knows what's up before I do any more experiments. Just in case, I'll include some more information about my system:

 

AMD X2 3800+ dual core @ 2700MHz

2x1024MB Patriot PC3500LLK @ DDR491

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR

 

So in addition to using 2.4.0, here are some other things I can try: *Edit: added bullet points to this list*

• Running my processor and ram at stock speeds
  
• Playing with ImgBurn.exe's priority
  
• Using something besides SPTI
  

Any other ideas?

 

Thanks so much for your help (and for making a wonderful application!)

-George

Edited April 16, 2008 by George Austin

[Big Barn]

Check your DMA

DMA, if on, can greatly speed up communications between your PC and its hard drive and DVD/CD drives.

 

The following assumes your hard drive is on the primary channel and the CD/DVD drive is on the secondary.

 

To check if it is on:

Right click on My Computer

Select Properties

Click on Hardware

Click on Device Manager

Double click on IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers

Double click on Primary channel

Click Advanced Settings and check it says DMA if available and is set to Ultra DMA, mode 5.

Do the same for the secondary channel -- it should be Ultra DMA, mode 2.

Don't worry if it says "Not applicable" - it means there is no device connected to that port. Thanks to Blutach

Edited April 16, 2008 by Big Barn

[George Austin]

That's not applicable to SATA drives, is it not?

 

Edit: Confirmed. Although it is possible to run SATA devices in PIO mode. Not that that's my problem, just an FYI.

Edited April 16, 2008 by George Austin

[Big Barn]

Well I think it is for all drives

[dontasciime]

check out the faq look for dma issues

[LOCOENG]

Post a log please.

[George Austin]

It's not DMA. My drive is working in SATA mode, not PIO, and reads are fast in other applications. I haven't tried writing using anything but ImgBurn yet.

 

This is the log of the burn where I discovered that ImgBurn.exe would not use CPU cycles and send instructions to my burner at anything other than a leisurely pace unless explorer.exe (or taskmgr.exe) were loading the processor as well.

; //****************************************\\

; ImgBurn Version 2.4.1.0 - Log

; Wednesday, 16 April 2008, 01:07:05

; \\****************************************//

;

;

I 00:47:57 ImgBurn Version 2.4.1.0 started!

I 00:47:57 Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition (5.2, Build 3790 : Service Pack 2)

I 00:47:57 Total Physical Memory: 2,095,428 KB - Available: 1,326,560 KB

I 00:47:57 Initialising SPTI...

I 00:47:57 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...

I 00:48:04 Found 1 DVD

[LIGHTNING UK!]

If your machine is basically pausing ImgBurn when it's not the active window then there's nothing ImgBurn can do about it.

 

The process priority is already set to 'High' by default when burning.

 

You need to look elsewhere for the root cause of the problem.

[George Austin]

If your machine is basically pausing ImgBurn when it's not the active window then there's nothing ImgBurn can do about it.

 

The process priority is already set to 'High' by default when burning.

 

You need to look elsewhere for the root cause of the problem.

Yes, but it's not pushing ImgBurn when it is the active window, either.

Edited April 16, 2008 by George Austin

[dontasciime]

try your bios and use sata as IDE instead of AHCI or if your using motherboard sata drivers uninstall them and let MS standard drivers take over.

 

 

What motherboard is it btw ?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Sorry, I kinda meant the 'shaking window' thing rather than making it active.

 

I remember seeing someone else with this exact same problem aaaages ago.

 

I honestly can't remember if he ever got to the bottom of it, he probably just reinstalled the OS or something.

[George Austin]

try your bios and use sata as IDE instead of AHCI or if your using motherboard sata drivers uninstall them and let MS standard drivers take over.

 

 

What motherboard is it btw ?

DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 SLI-DR.

 

This:

The SATA-IO SATA-II specification says nothing about host controller

implementations. Intel documents a host controller implemetnation in

the AHCI specification which is becoming an industry standard, but

nForce4 SATA is not AHCI.

from here makes me think that I won't find any such bios option, but I'll look anyways. nVidia's NF4 serial ATA controller drivers haven't been a problem with previous versions of ImgBurn, but I'll try removing my controllers in device manager and have Windows install generic drivers after a reboot.

 

Sorry, I kinda meant the 'shaking window' thing rather than making it active.

 

I remember seeing someone else with this exact same problem aaaages ago.

 

I honestly can't remember if he ever got to the bottom of it, he probably just reinstalled the OS or something.

My search-fu is weak - I only turned up the relatively recent http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=6188 when I was looking before I posted last night, but I'll try again and see if I can't find that guy's thread.

 

I don't remember, but I think that "shaking" ImgBurn's window (instead of Task Manager's) also caused my burn speed to jump up.

 

I thought of two other things to add to my list of things to try:

• Using DVDStyler's included burning program to see if the problem is limited to IMGBurn
  
• Uninstalling and re-installing AMD's dual-core optimizer.
  

Or, since everything behaves when I'm freshly booted, I could just employ the less labor-intensive "reboot before burning" work-around instead of the "shake a window for 5 minutes or more" work-around .

 

Thanks for the help so far!

-George

Edited April 16, 2008 by George Austin

[George Austin]

My quest to eliminate variables has begun!

 

So, burning with mkisofs.exe through DVDStyler exhibits the same behavior as burning with ImgBurn 2.4.1.0

Burning
Disc size: 4482 MB
ISO Size: 1990 MB
Executing 'C:\Program Files (x86)\DVDStyler\dvdauthor\mkisofs.exe -V DVD -dvd-video C:\Documents and Settings\George Austin\My Documents\dvd\dvd | builtin_dd of=\\.\E: obs=32k seek=0'
 0.49% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:24:19 2008
 5.40% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:44:43 2008
10.30% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:40:50 2008
15.21% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:35:31 2008
20.11% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:32:42 2008
25.02% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:31:00 2008
30.41% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:29:42 2008
35.32% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:28:55 2008
40.22% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:28:19 2008
45.13% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:27:51 2008
50.03% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:27:30 2008
55.43% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:27:10 2008
60.34% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:26:56 2008
65.24% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:26:43 2008
70.15% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:26:31 2008
75.05% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:26:21 2008
80.45% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:26:12 2008
85.35% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:26:04 2008
90.26% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:25:58 2008
95.16% done, estimate finish Wed Apr 16 21:25:52 2008
Total translation table size: 0
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 0
Total directory bytes: 4248
Path table size(bytes): 42
Max brk space used 0
1019297 extents written (1990 Mb)
builtin_dd: 1019312*2KB out @ average 2.8x1385KBps
\\.\E:: "Current Write Speed" is 4.1x1385KBps.
\\.\E:: flushing cache
\\.\E:: closing track
\\.\E:: closing disc

You can see that the ETA jumps 20 minutes after once it realizes how slow its burning. The ETA slowly approaches the original time once I start messing with windows and the burn goes faster.

 

So it seems my computer forgets to talk with my optical drive when left to its own devices .

 

I wish I thought to load up Sysinternals Process Explorer sooner, since I don't think taskmgr reports hardware interrupts,

 

So, the first thing I'm going to change is SATA controller drivers. Bye bye nVidia, hello whatever the Found New Hardware Wizard gives me. Any other suggestions would be great!

 

-George

 

*EDIT* So this and this from CD Freaks make me think that I should disable SATA-RAID in the bios first before messing with drivers.

*EDIT 2* Bios tweaking was a bust (RAID was already disabled, there was no AHCI option), but further reading on CD Freaks seems to indicate the nVidia's IDE drivers are the likely culprit, so I've uninstalled them in favor of Microsoft's drivers. Wish me luck with future burning!

Edited April 17, 2008 by George Austin

[dontasciime]

I always use standard Ms drivers instead of Nvidia on all my nforce boards it is easier that way.

 

You may be unlucky and will have to re install if too much crap is left in but only use the nforce driver for chipset and decline the storage drivers on your clean install if it comes to that

[George Austin]

The default Windows did the trick and I've been burning like a champ for weeks! Thanks for the help!

[dontasciime]

Your welcome.

 

Remember when you come to do a clean install stay away from the Nfarce Ide/Storage drivers