I would post the screenshots in the thread, but they are fairly large (5 pics totaling about 500kb), so I'll just link to them.

My problem is that for some reason, Nero, CloneCD, Alcohol, etc. don't give my Liteon 32123S any respect.

When I first installed Windows XP, it was working fine. I could burn at 32X with no problem. However, after installing many applications on it, I have noticed several things.

1: It burns at 12X consistently

2: It uses up 100% of one of my CPUs (I own a dual processor machine so it uses 50% of my total CPU power)

3: In Windows Task manager Nero (or CCD) uses up about 5-6% of the CPU, but there are no other apps open that would use up the rest of the CPU cycles; even adding up all the CPU percentages would result in less than 20% usage.

However, the quality of the burns does not seem to denegrate, as I was able to copy GTA3, MOH:AA, etc. with no problem. I'm just getting ticked off at it.

Screenshots:

Pre-burn - Taken just before burning a CD in Nero. Notice the CPU usage is very low and Nero is set to burn at 32X

During burning - Taken while Nero burns. You will see that Nero is only using 1% of the CPU (the max it ever gets to is 7 to 8%), system idle is using 94%, yet at the bottom of the screen it states that CPU usage is at 50% (Again, this is like a 100% usage on a uniprocessor machine)

During Burning - Same as the previous pic, only you can see the graph (the spike 1/4 into the graph is when Nero began burning)

Leadout - During the leadout. Notice that while Nero is writing the leadout, CPU usage is down to 4% and the graphs have fallen.

Burning complete - Notice how the CPU graphs have remained low and that a 32X burn of a 612MB CD took 5 minutes 34 seconds.

Technical specifications:
Dual AMD MP 2000+
Liteon LTR32123S
Windows XP Pro SP1
Latest versions of Nero, CloneCD, and Alcohol 120%
Latest firmware for the LTR32123S

I tried burning CDs and images without ASPI layers installed, and with the brand new ASPI, but got the same result. Currently I have the brand new ASPIs (for Windows XP of course)

Anyone able to help me with this?
My theories:

1: Something is wrong with my installation of Windows XP. This is my main guess, because I have a second installation of XP Pro dual-booting (this one runs in uniprocessor mode), and it burns completely fine. However, I know the problem doesn't rest in the dual processors, because I had burned them at 32X for over 4 months in duallie mode.

2: Dunno.

it sounds to me dma is off. Windows Xp like to turn it off and switch to PIO mode if it thinks theres a problem. Mine did a couple of days ago.

Right click on my computer and go to properties. Under the hardware tab, click device manager. No go to atapi/ide controllers.

Im assuming your liteon is on the secondary ide channel? If so, right click on your buner and click uninstall. Also if you hav another optical drive on the same channel, uninstall it too. Now uninstall your secondary ide channel controller and reboot. Now when it boots back up dma should be turne don, and if not slect it.

If your drive is on the primary ide channel as the slave, then that might also cause a slow down. If that is the case move it to the secondary channel if you have room.

But, if you don't have room on that channel, follow the steps above in device manager, do not uninstall the primary ide controller, otherwise your systme might not boot. I cannot confirm this but i would advise against it. Here is a link discussing it:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread....&highlight=ide

Hope that solves your problems.

Unfortunately it didn't; I'll just do a clean install of XP (I've been meaning to do that anyway).

good luck

This is freaking me out.

I formatted my HDD and reinstalled Windows XP, yet the same thing happens.

Anyone have an idea of what could be wrong (now)?

Still sounds exactly like no DMA.

try replacing your ide cables, it might help