Sony CRX140E CD Writer problems...

[dopefeedback]

Ok here I go:
I bought a Sony CRX140E CD writer in the fall of 2000, hooked it up and it worked great. It worked perfectly on full speed (8x) burning...then something happened...I started getting errors from the device, so I took it back to the store(one year warranty) and they looked at the drive...but found nothing wrong. I got it back, put it back in my computer, and it worked again! "Phew" I thought, I'm glad it works. But then now about a month ago it started giving me those errors again. So I took it back to the store, they tested it and nothing was wrong. I took it back home once more, hoping it would work, but no, nothing. Here's my problem. There's nothin wrong with the Writer hardware, or the software(I tried several programs with no luck). The problem must be somewhere else in my computer. My setup is as follows:
Jetway 993AS Motherboard (some VIA chipset)
IDE Controller 0: device 0: My 13 Gig master harddrive with the os on it. device 1(slave): a 15 gig ibm harddrive partitioned 50/50
IDE Controller 1: device 0(master): the CD Writer and device 1(slave): my 40x CD-Rom reader.
GfxBoard: TNT2 M64
Sound: Soundblaster PCI 128
NIC: Don't know actually...
I can't really think of anything more relevant for you to know right now...ask if you need to know anything. I would greatly appriciate your help.
/Dope Feedback aka Agent Embryo

[NDD]

What kind of errors, dude ?!

[dopefeedback]

Uhmm...sort of like write error at block #### and so on, it goes up to 2%...another thing, it's not the media eighter...I tried different brands of discs that have worked great before...
/Agent Embryo

[dopefeedback]

Hmm...I think I found a possible cause to my problems...at bootup there's a quick message that states something like: semi conductor 80 not connected...or something similar...is this caused by the kind of IDE cable I use? It writes this out right after the IDE config...

[OuTpaTienT]

I have that same burner and no problems with it so far.

What type of problems is it giving you?

What software are you using to burn with?

Have you tried reinstalling the device/drivers?

[Sweeper]

80 conductor cable sounds loose or bad. Try swapping it out with a new one or checking to see if it is seated properly. 80 conductor cable is used for ATA66/100 drives. Sounds like it either bad or pulled out a bit from your drive or board. Check the pins as well, make sure you didn't bend any while installing and removing the burner.

Sweeper

[dopefeedback]

Well that IDE cable is indeed the problem. I just switched the cables and now my harddrives are reading really slow. It's one of those 90cm long 5 connector cables...my other is a normal with an extension, and that seems to work just fine. I'll get a new one...

[BobyJo]

If you have the CD Burner set as slave on the HD cable, this probably is the problem. The CD Burner needs to be a master on an IDE channel, The hard drives needs to be on a different IDE channel. If you have the CDBurner on as slave on the HD cable, you have a conflict of date moving back and forth on the same IDE channel. Sometimes this does not work well. I have seen some older system get by with this, The newer systems with ATA66-100 controllers do not work well with the configuration. Place the CD Burner as a master on a DMA33 IDE channel and use the ATA66-100 channels for your hard drives.

[DK]

Sony recomends to setup this CD-RW as a master on secondary IDE channel (hence: its own cable not hooked up to the hard drive). So at this point you need to buy two cables. I have a Sony CD-RW crx140e with a 100% burn rate with no errors using its native software.

[dopefeedback]

Thanks, but you haven't read my first post properly. The Writer IS master on the secondary IDE controller.

[OuTpaTienT]

I have this exact same writer, and it is the slave on the second IDE channel. My Zip drive is the master on that channel.

I've had no problems so far. I've successfully burned both audio & data CDs with a multitude of burning software.

Don't know how this helps, but just thought I'd throw in the fact that it doesn't HAVE to be the master.

[dopefeedback]

Ok. I thought I had it going there for a moment...I removed the cd-rom so the writer was on its own ide chan...well it started to write...and got through the test write...i was filled with joy...then when it wrote track #9 on the cd...it happened again...and ruined the disc. I'm getting really pissed off at this piece of ****. I don't know what else to do now...

[Bovon]

How big is the power supply?..Its just possible, the psu can't supply enough power. I know, slim shot in the dark, but power supplies do fail sometimes, and burners use a lot of it.

Try removing all cards, sound and NIC, anything except the video. Get into Windows, defrag the hard drive. Close any other applications running in the background with the end task menu,. except Explorer and Systray. Start a burn, and leave it alone, don't even move the mouse. See what happens under this set of parameters, and come back and tell us..ok?

Seems like sence it works at the shop, but not at your house...there is somthing about your machine thats doing the dirty work.