[Beds] RE: Problems with CD Writing

[Jonathan Dye]

Neil Darlow wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
> 
> Your problem must be environmental because I've written CDs on
> machines with specs as low as K6-233 and my current VIA C3-533 under
> KDE. 

I assume so as I've also done it on lower spec machines but I can't work out
what the problem is.

> I don't write at high speeds 8x for CD-R and 4x for CD-RW though. I
> have my CD-RW drive as a slave and DMA is disabled.

I have the DMA on as having it off means I can't write at full speed, I'll
try turning it off and going slower.
Do you know the correct way of turning on DMA when using ide-scsi as
fiddling with the /dev/hd* entries seems a bit like goign behind ide-scsi's
back.

> Like you, I run the writer using ide-scsi and have used both gcombust
> and now CDBakeOven.
> 
> Things I can suggest are:
> 
> 1) Ensure your screensaver has a kick-in of more than one burning
> interval 

It has

> 2) Try alternate brands of media experimenting with CD-RW
> first 

I'll have to get some other disks

> 3) Check the reliability of your CD-RW drive. Does it throw any
> errors on read 

Nope

> 4) Check the capabilites of your CD-RW drive with
> hdparm -i 
> 
> I don't think playing with kernel configuration will help much and a
> pre-emptible kernel should definately not be required. It's more
> likely to be a configuration issue e.g. the mode of DMA used support
> for multi-sector etc. 

I'll have another play with DMA stuff as I've only recently turned it on.
Having it off makes my machine sluggish to mouse movements when burning and
CPU hits 100% at 20x write.

> 
> Regards,
> Neil Darlow M.Sc.

Thanks

JD

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