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Thread: Can my system run CD RW?

  1. #1
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    Can my system run CD RW?

    I am considering buying buslink 16x10x40 for $70 after rebate at best buy. The buslink site indicates pentium II 350 Mhz is required. I only have a pentium 200 MHz (mmx). Is this burner not going to work for me?

    I do have 96 MB of memory so no problem with that requirement.

    Buslink description is at http://www.buslink.com/Prodinfo/cdrw161040ide.htm

  2. #2
    Ultimate Member muchmark's Avatar
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    The burner will work but not at 16X, probably at 4X. I would buy this burner because when you upgrade you will be able to use it a its maximum speed.

  3. #3
    But if it has a buffer underrun, shouldnt the 16x work with a slow system? Just curious...
    Last edited by wing7788; 11-19-2001 at 11:21 PM.

  4. #4
    Ultimate Member RayH's Avatar
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    Last year, I put an 8x in a 233 MHz! Worked just fine!

  5. #5
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    Thanks for your help eveybody.

    I bought the thing and will probably put it in Thursday. Maybe I'll report back how it runs.

    I thought going with the burn-proof thing was a good idea as wing indicates...as I had read that if you have a limited system it provides some protection (though I am not sure exactly what it would do for a slow system).

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    I thought I had seen elswhere on this forum that the buslink is actually made by lite-on. I was looking at some of these on ebay and see listings for lite-on 16x10x40 that say Pentium 133 is the minimum processor requirement...

  7. #7
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    pfff... for a system to be good at CD writing, everything matters EXCEPT processor speed.

    You need bus mastering IDE channels, lots of RAM, and source drives (HDD, CDROM) that can keep up. The CPU isn't involved other than for sending commands out to the IDE or SCSI channels.

    When I first added my 8x writer to my box, it still had an ancient 150 MHz Cyrix 6x86 in there - yet still, the extra CPU load during a CD write was hardly noticeable, total load peaks staying well under 20 percent (with about 8 to 10 percent base load when totally idle).

    So technically, had fast IDE channels and lots of RAM been popular in the 486 area, even these would be sufficient.

    And on the other hand, if your storage attachment interfaces don't cut it, then the fastest CPU in the world won't help it either.

    regards, Peter

  8. #8
    Member eweruk's Avatar
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    Your power supply may also be a weak link if it cannot handle the power requirements.

  9. #9
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    Seems to be no problem running the rw drive. I burned a cd at 16x seems to have copied files just fine.

    BTW the buslink is lite-on as win 98 identified it as such when I installed it.

    Also power suppy was mentioned...mine is 230W.

  10. #10
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    Just for the record, this weekend I added a 16x SCSI Yamaha 2100S and an LSI 20860 SCSI card (Ultra 20 SCSI) to a Duron 850 on ECS K7S5A box.

    Running Windows XP and Nero 5.5, we had about 20 percent CPU load during 40x audio grab (courtesy of Nero's audio grab error correction), and ZERO percent CPU load during 16x burn (off the image file on the bus mastering ATA100 IDE drive). Nada. Nix. Null. Niente.

    So the non-critical audio grabbing might take longer if you have a drastically slower CPU, but as I said before, the burning itself doesn't even bother the CPU in a mentionable way as soon as you have bus mastering mass storage controllers and a decent operating system.

    regards, Peter

  11. #11
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    Adding to the record my 16X RW copied a nearly full 600mb+ CD in just over 5 min...5:15 to be exact. This again is a 200Mhz pentium.

  12. #12
    Member arthur888's Avatar
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    ------------------------------
    pfff... for a system to be good at CD writing, everything matters EXCEPT processor speed.
    ------------------------------


    Peter Missel is absolutely right.

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