CD/DVD read speed problems

[coltrane]

I have been loading CD into ITunes and at first all the disc were being
read at approximately 40x. Then "something" happened and now all the
discs are reading at approx. 17x. What might be the reason for this?

thanks

john

 

[Joel]

I have been loading CD into ITunes and at first all the disc were being
read at approximately 40x. Then "something" happened and now all the
discs are reading at approx. 17x. What might be the reason for this?

Yes, any action should have some reason.

1. If it starts with 40X then it's possible that

a. It's 40X

b. 40X is the default setting either by user or program

c. Or a good guess

2. If it ends up at 17X then

a. At some moment something isn't fast enough to do 40x then it slows down
to get the job done.

b. If it stay at 17x then 17X is pretty much the speed either the media,
program, or system can do. So try to live with it, or trying different
media

c. If at some point it slow down to 17x but other point it speed up faster
than 40x then don't get too upset or overjoyed as the program is
reporting the current speed at the moment.

thanks
welcome

john

Joel

 

[coltrane]

Yes, any action should have some reason.

1. If it starts with 40X then it's possible that

a. It's 40X

b. 40X is the default setting either by user or program

c. Or a good guess

2. If it ends up at 17X then

a. At some moment something isn't fast enough to do 40x then it slows down
to get the job done.

b. If it stay at 17x then 17X is pretty much the speed either the media,
program, or system can do. So try to live with it, or trying different
media

c. If at some point it slow down to 17x but other point it speed up faster
than 40x then don't get too upset or overjoyed as the program is
reporting the current speed at the moment.


Joel

thanks for the reply.
Actually the speed is now down to 7x. The read starts at 7x and stays
there. The situation is that when I was first importing discs the reads
were at ~40x for the entire import. Now the discs import at 7x. I have
400 more discs to go and I'll never get it done at this speed. I don't
have the patience.

thanks again

john

 

[GlowingBlueMist]

thanks for the reply.
Actually the speed is now down to 7x. The read starts at 7x and stays
there. The situation is that when I was first importing discs the reads
were at ~40x for the entire import. Now the discs import at 7x. I have
400 more discs to go and I'll never get it done at this speed. I don't
have the patience.

thanks again

john

Try scanning on of the disks that did work at 40x and see if it can
still be read at that speed. If so then the source disks are causing
the problem.

If the speed is still slow with the prior 40x disk try using some canned
air to clean the drive, while no disk is in it but with the drive bay
open. Possibly a little dust buildup on the lens is making the drive
need to go slower.

Any chance you were saving the data to a drive that was not on the same
cable (usually faster) as the CD but now you are saving to a drive
attached to the same IDE cable.

 

[Paul]

thanks for the reply.
Actually the speed is now down to 7x. The read starts at 7x and stays
there. The situation is that when I was first importing discs the reads
were at ~40x for the entire import. Now the discs import at 7x. I have
400 more discs to go and I'll never get it done at this speed. I don't
have the patience.

thanks again

john

You can use some of the free Nero tools for testing your optical drive.

Infotool gives information on the modes supported by the burner. The
"Disc" tab shows data for the disc inserted in the tray.

http://majorgeeks.com/screenshots/n/neroinftool.gif

The author of Infotool is Eric Deppe, and the tool is bundled
with Nero, in the tools folder. The tool is also offered
separately for download. The version I use, came with Nero.

http://majorgeeks.com/Nero_InfoTool_d120.html

The other tool is "Disc Speed". It can do quality tests on CDs.
The quality test could either tell you the CD was bad. But
if many different brands of CDs are bad, then you'd suspect
the drive was the problem.

http://majorgeeks.com/Nero_DiscSpeed_d118.html

An optical drive is also subject to bus limitations. To give
an amusing example, I was attempting to burn my first DVD9 dual
layer on my burner. The LED on the drive would flash on and off
slowly, indicating something wasn't right. But I didn't have
my thinking cap on at the time. I thought maybe the media was
bad. My DVD burner is in a USB2 enclosure, which is plenty for
the job (up to 30MB/sec). Later, I happened to look in Device Manager,
and noticed my "Enhanced" USB2 entry was missing. Doh!
The reason the light was flashing like that on the drive,
is I was running USB 1.1 mode, 1.0MB/sec data rate, which
would have taken hours to finish my burn. After I fixed the
stupid driver issue, it worked properly.

The same thing can happen with the IDE bus. For example, it
can drop into PIO mode and run pretty slow. If any "speed"
type benchmarks are a "flat line", perhaps it is a bus
or cable issue. Like what mode is being used for the bus
or cable.

HTH,
Paul

 

[coltrane]

Try scanning on of the disks that did work at 40x and see if it can
still be read at that speed. If so then the source disks are causing the
problem.

If the speed is still slow with the prior 40x disk try using some canned
air to clean the drive, while no disk is in it but with the drive bay
open. Possibly a little dust buildup on the lens is making the drive
need to go slower.

Any chance you were saving the data to a drive that was not on the same
cable (usually faster) as the CD but now you are saving to a drive
attached to the same IDE cable.

well unfortunately the canned air was a bad thing. At first the drive
door wouldn't stay closed. Then it wouldn't read the disc at all. Now it
will read a disc but the speed is down to 2x. I tried to use an optical
disc cleaner that I use for my stereo cd player and I also reinstalled
the driver and the read speed is still down to 2x. I hate to do it but
at this point I might as well try buying a new drive because I think the
canned air did some permanent damage. At least the drives are only $25.

oh well..

 

[Joel]

well unfortunately the canned air was a bad thing. At first the drive
door wouldn't stay closed. Then it wouldn't read the disc at all. Now it
will read a disc but the speed is down to 2x. I tried to use an optical
disc cleaner that I use for my stereo cd player and I also reinstalled
the driver and the read speed is still down to 2x. I hate to do it but
at this point I might as well try buying a new drive because I think the
canned air did some permanent damage. At least the drives are only $25.

oh well..

The chance that you won't see much or any difference with or without newer
drive. And if I were you I ain't gonna worrying about dropping to 2X just
for some split second ...

Try burning with Windows 7 and might (not always but there is a big
chance) see the real burning pain.

Did I tell you that at the end my speed drops and freeze at 0X for some
minutes?