HELP--Burner SLOOOOWS system to a crawl

[cursor]

So this is something that's bugged me for a while:

I have a crap Cendyne 32x CDRW and when I burn at 32x, my system slows down dramatically.

If I burn at 4x my system is usable, but I didn't buy a 32x burner to burn at 4x.

Any ideas on how to keep the burner from choking my system?

Thanks.

[FTC]

Yep,

Verify whether DMA is/is not enabled. It should be enabled. (look into device manager, either CD-ROM device or ATAPI device depending on your windows version)

Regards
FTC

[cursor]

Thanks for your reply. I checked that earlier and was a bit frustrated. You see, I'm using XP Pro and there is no DMA setting in the control panel. When I've used 9x, it's always been an option.

What am I doing wrong? I DO have my bus master IDE drivers installed, by the way.

[cursor]

There is no "advanced settings" tab under the properties for any of my IDE devices or controllers.

It looks to me like DMA is enabled (see pic).

So I've looked a little deeper and here's a screenshot of my control panel:

[FTC]

Cursor,

Sorry, can not help you with xp. Just using 98 and 2K, and from your pic it looks different from my OSs.

Regards
FTC

[RedDeathDrinker]

If you double click on the Primary (or secondary, depending on what channel your CD-RW is on) DMA channel icon, you should get an "Advanced Properties" window. Go to "Advanced Settings" -> "Transfer Mode" and select DMA......

[cursor]

From everything I can find on the net, I'm supposed to have the advanced properties tab, but I don't for some reason!

Both my IDE channels do not have Advanced properties. I've looked for the "advanced properties" tab under motherboard properties, hard drives, ide channels, and cd roms. It ain't there.

It looks like this:

[Johnny Knoxville]

that's because you probably installed intel application accelerator. open up intel application accelerator (wherever you installed it) and it will tell you if the cd-writer is in dma mode.

[cursor]

Hey! You were close. I have a SiS 645dx chipset motherboard, and they have an equivalent program. I was running an old version of it. Downloaded the latest version and voila! Advanced settings popped up. So I just tried burning a CD and running other programs. MUCH faster. Thanks Johnny Knoxville, reddeath, and FTC!

:beer: