Added a CD-RW...

[JyimBain]

I just added a Philips PCRW4212/17 to my Compaq 5700N, which already has a LiteOn CD-ROM LTN323. Sometime when I copy from the LiteOn drive to the Philips, the LiteOn drive locks up. My drivers appear to be current, is there something I may have missed? Is anyone having a similar problem?

Thanks in advance!

[Bovon]

How are the two drives connected in the computer?..are they both on the same IDE controller?...like one is master and one is slave?..if this is the way they are connected, try putting the Liteon as a slave on the Primary IDE and the CD RW as master on the secondary IDE

[zybch]

Remember that the Lite-On brand isn't exactly the creme de la creme of quality. Compaq uses them because they are cheap. Unless you are writing at x32 having the reader and writers on the same cable shouldn't pose too much of a problem and certanly shouldn't lock up unless the source disc has errors on it that the drive cannor correct.

[NDD]

Remember that the Lite-On brand isn't exactly the creme de la creme of quality
Already waiting otheos to see it :x

[Midknyte]

compaq tends to put all of its drives on cable select. Make sure that one drive is master and one drive is slave. :D

[JyimBain]

Currently I have the LiteOn as the master and the Philips as the slave, pehaps I will try changing them around. As to LiteOn's quality, I'm finding Compaq skimps on ALOT of stuff like that...


Thanks for the help, all of you!

[otheos]

Originally posted by zybch
Remember that the Lite-On brand isn't exactly the creme de la creme of quality. Compaq uses them because they are cheap. Unless you are writing at x32 having the reader and writers on the same cable shouldn't pose too much of a problem and certanly shouldn't lock up unless the source disc has errors on it that the drive cannor correct.

These days, no CDRW is exactly la creme de la creme, in quality, at least with LinteOn you get what you pay for (unlike Plextor... sad!).

Having the reader and writer on the same cable, even at 2x burning you'll have BURNProof kicking in every other second. IDE is so poorly managing two drives on the same cable when ti comes to transfer data between them, rates can be as low as 100KB/s.

However his problem seems to be lock ups not burffer underruns (that most people don't notice these days, and they come asking "why does it take 8 minutes to burn a disk at 32x?").

But you need to start clean. First and most importantly if this box is under warranty make use of Compaq's support by all means.

Otherwise, you should, first set the drives on different cables, jumpered as master/slave (cable select can have all kinds of problems). If your problems persist, you need to check your software, try a clean re-installation. Also check the IDE drivers, most motherboards work better with MS's drivers than the manufacturers, so this is something to play around with, and don't forget DMA settings etc.

So basically nothing new, people above said the same. Try that :)

If this is W2K or better see your event log for any weird messages, if it's W98/Me, no wonder it locks (sorry couldn't help it).

[$1500-P4 gamer]

HDD's are no dif. either. I have run 2 hdd's many times one for backup. Upon benching I found all the hubub to be true. When transfering files between two hdd's it is best to have one on each master setting. If on one channel (primary) it slows down alot. Why? Well because in order for it to transfer at all from one to the other it must first pass through the ide controler. One device may only transmit at a time so the other is always in a wait stait. Then the data is sent back to the other hdd. This kills the performance. Also the IDE will default to the slowest speed of the two devices connected hence why its generally bad to slave a cdrom or burner off the primary channel thus killing your OS speed. My best config so far with one HDD is this in my sys. Primary- 40gig maxtor ata133 HDD
Secondary- (master) cdr/rw udma2 (slave) DVD udma2

Thats my max speed/stability I have found. The only prob. is it seems that two HDD's or 3 cdroms through a wrench in the works! You have to hurt the performance of one or the other to use it all. This makes haveing four independant channels almost a must these days, its really sad! PCI IDE add on cards dont fit the bill either untill 66mhz pci becomes more available and even then ata100 will be held back. Need 4 channels on the mobo itself.:x

[otheos]

You've lost me there $1500.

Also the IDE will default to the slowest speed of the two devices connected

NO!

IDE controllers can switch speed as long as both devices support DMA. If you have a UDMA33 and a UDMA100, they will each operate at their default speed. If one is PIO only though, you're stuck at PIO.

For your setup I would suggest to move the DVD slave to the HD so that you can do on the fly copies, unless you do DVD rips to the hard disk in which case, to achive both ripping and on the fly burning you need to move the CDRW as slave to the HD, but then you risking buffer underruns when you burn from the HD.

Do you see now why BURNProof was a NEED for IDE drives, and why it's ok for a SCSI drive not to have one? I personally hate those little gaps, so BURNProof and Z-CLV are a no go for me :).

You see one of the largest advantages of SCSI is flexibility. No such problems exist and you can have up to 7 devices (on ONE cable).

As for the 66Mhz bus, you' ve lost me there as you can certainly have 4 IDE channels (2 on southgate + 2 external) on a standard 32/33. Trust me those 133MB/s are plenty unless you want to RAID0 more than 2 drives. Even with 4 drives separetly, chances of all of them peaking STR at once are unlikely, so the bottleneck is really not an issue.

unless you read that terrible "Review" about 64/66 slots on single cpu workstation, someone linked on another thread (in which case you should see my comments).

[Shinta]

u still didnt mention whether they are on the same ide controller :\

[JyimBain]

I have another question: How should I have the audio cable set up? The cable that came with the CDRW has a split, but for some reason the end that connects with the mobo has one connection for the drive, while the other is on the other end! With my drives stacked in a standard configuration, they won't reach! Should I have the audio cable only hooked to the master drive, or do I have to find one that I can connect to both and then to the mobo? If so, where can I get one?

[NDD]

Why not to look for longer cables ? :confused:

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Hey otheos, thanks for that info. I was under the wrong impresion there. I had read that at a site but it may very well have been about non dma drives. They were pointing out the advantages of SCSI over IDE. Now that I know, it changes everything! Your one smart dude and I have no problems with you pointing out my inacuracies! Keep it comeing I only learn more from it.

As far as 66mhz pci I was refering to add-on pci adaptors that are ata100 and such. They congest the standard 33mhz pci bus but again thats only what I have read. I have no way of proveing it or knowing other wise by other than what I can find on the net. Hence why I said the new 66mhz pci bus and ata100 pci 66mhz cards(maxtor only right now I think) are better. Though most other Co.s are pushing the new seriel type. By the way what is you opinion on that subject? I mean seriel vs. 66mhz bus adaptors? Lot of hub-ub on the net about it right now.

As for the four channel ide mobo's that exactly what I was saying. That is what you said aswell. There is no prob. with them and they are the best way to have four channels versus a addon card that will saturate the pci bus (33mhz) and thus limit other cards access like the sound etc. and put them in a wait stait as only one device can use the pci bus per transfer. Or is that wrong? Yes, no? Anywho thats what I was saying.

As far as me doing dvd rips, thats a nodda. Besides I have a macromedia copy protection proof capture card. If I want a VCD of a DVD I'll just pump it in from my dvd standalone which has two outputs and decoders built in. Already backed up my old dieing vcr tapes. This way I have them when the finally go. My vcr's getting old too so imagine that wont be long till its dead. I'm not throwing another $100 into a old outdated vcr thats for sure. Thanks for all the info though it was very helpfull. Think I may just have to slave that dvd off my HDD- thats a great idea for cd-cd copy's.;)

[JyimBain]

ND:

But where? I haven't seen them sold separately anywhere, that's why I was asking... :(

[JyimBain]

ND: OOPS!

Ignore that last post, of course, not 10 mins later, I found one!

Please pardon my lack of knowledge, I'm new to most of this and just learning as I go!

Thanks again!

[NDD]

No Problemo :cool: