Plex1610

[Guest]

After following the forum for I while, I went ahead and brought the plextor....everything is fine, but I have some questions for other plextor owners.....
Does the tray always slide out so slowly? It seems really laboured, making quite a loud whirring noise...it doesn't sound broken or anything, just I was expecting the same sort of speed as any other CD drive...
Is spinning up time always so slow...I have to wait about 5 seconds before being able to read information from a CD. Is it possible to speed this up somewhere.
Seek times...the speed checker got a figure of 160....isn't that a little slow?
Bad reads (which can produce clicks on audio grabbing), again the speed util recorded many...on my friends Samsung hardly any were recorded, and its seek time was only 110, and the tray opens quickly, and you can read the CD within about 2 secs...it is only an 8x though.
Otherwise the performance is great, burns quickly, no errors so far...
And what about that DMA33 stuff...should i change it to that mode?

Well, thats all...hope someone can put my mind at rest...

Peace y'all!

Design Team.

 

[Guest]

What you describe also happens with my Plextor 121032A. But I have had no problems with clicks in audio grabbing so far.

I don't care about the slowliness, I've got the 2nd best burner in the market...

The best way to fight boredom is sleeping

 

[rfh1234]

My Plex 16x is pretty slow spinning up a disc too, no problems reading, draw is slow but not loud or labored

 

[Fa1c0n]

It's the sound of a really well made drive door motor opening the drive slowly and solidly.

Yes it takes some time to mount the media. -pretty normal for a CD-RW.

As for the other problems:

Make sure you are using DMA mode, and everything is set for maximum performance per the instructions from Plextor.

Make sure that your Plextor is <i>not</i> on the same IDE cable (channel) as your other CD-ROM drive!

IDE can only READ <i><b>OR</b></i> WRITE on devices on the same channel, not both at the same time. If it is reading from your CD-ROM, it can't write to your CD-RW until it is finished with it's read cycle (If you have both drives as Master and Slave on the same channel).

But if you have the HD and CD-ROM as Master and Slave on IDE #1. And The Plextor as Master on IDE #2, then it should work great.

Also make sure you have the latest Bus-Master IDE drivers and other motherboard chipset drivers from your manufacturer. and read <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=12067#12067" target="_new">this</A> if that doesn't fix it.


<b><font color=green> Have a day </font color=green></b>

 

[Toejam31]

I can't completely agree with your post. There is nothing wrong with having a Plexwriter CD-RW on the same IDE cable as a separate CD-ROM, as long as it is the Master, and the CD-ROM is the Slave.

It is a real error to place the CD-ROM on the same cable as the hard drive. When two devices are on the same cable, the faster device can only run as fast as the slower device. While this setup WILL work ... almost any modern hard drive is capable of transferring data much faster than any CD-RW or CD-ROM. What you have done is effectively reduce the data transfer rate of your hard drive to a crawl.

While it is true that IDE is not multi-threaded, what you have suggested in order to correct the data transfer problem is not a viable solution.

Therefore, in order to make fast copies of a CD from a CD-ROM to the CD-RW, the data should be ported to the hard drive in a temporary folder. This is also best when making multiple copies of the data, when you need the extra speed.

Any reliable PC tech will tell you exactly the same thing ... go ask, and see for yourself. It's a very basic principle that is taught in any A+ Certification course.

Toejam31

<font color=purple>If there was a reason for everything, having faith would be redundant.</font color=purple>

 

[Guest]

It doesn't matter much what device is master, and what device is slave. The terms "master" and "slave" are unduly strong. The *only* difference is the order: the master is checked first on an interrupt, and the slave second. But they can never talk at the same time, no matter what.

Leo

 

[Toejam31]

I have to disagree again!

Note: Before I get into this, let me state that while you and I may not agree on certain subjects, this is still a friendly discussion ... nothing more. That's what a forum is for ... open discussions, hopefully, under civilized terms. I wanted to make that clear, so this doesn't degenerate into a flame war, of sorts. I respect your opinion, even if I can't agree with it.

Now, after that opening statement, here is my opinion:

Certain devices will not function correctly when set as a Slave on an IDE cable. Often, if this happens, this is due to a problem with installed third-party software used with the peripheral. But it happens, nevertheless, and even reinstallation of the software won't "fix" the problem. The only thing that can be done is to change the the Master/Slave configuration.

Occasionally, a device will not be recognized by the computer when set as a Slave, from the within the GUI. I have found that some brands of CD-RW's, such as HP's, are particularly sensitive to this issue. Plexwriter's will also sometimes not be identified unless set as a Master, or run at the rated speed. I have even installed devices that could not be recognized by the BIOS when set as a Slave.

I can't tell you why without doing additional research on the subject ... because this isn't always the case. But since it DOES happen ... it's better to go ahead and set the CD-RW as the Master on an IDE cable, just as a general rule-of-thumb. If you build and service enough systems, you see a lot of strange tendencies occur in different peripherals, and this is a common work-around.

Understand, I don't find fault with your logic. What you are saying is correct. But specifications, and even an inherent knowledge of why things SHOULD work ... these things don't always pan-out in a real-work situation. If the drive refuses to function as a Slave, for whatever reason ... the smart thing to do is to set it as Master. If it always functions correctly as a Master ... then that's what you do.

A common occurance for new builders to set the jumper settings on the hard drives incorrectly. Which, of course, will keep the machine from accessing the OS and booting. This is an situation where specifying which device is the Master IS important, or the BIOS settings won't be in sync with the hardware.

You may be an advanced enough as a user that it would never occur to you to do something so foolish. But for other people, that is not the case. It's minor matters such as this that cause techs to spend hours educating people over the phone.


Toejam31


<font color=purple>If there was a reason for everything, having faith would be redundant.</font color=purple>