Hello everyone,

I'm having some difficulty with the Nero Transfer Rate Test. I am using the latest version; just thought I'd let ya know. Basically, I bought a brand new DVD burner; It's a LITE-ON. I bought it about three weeks ago and everything has been burning completely fine. I am using to different brands of DVDs to burn: Memorex and Sony. Because money is an issue, my main brand of dvds is memorex, but whenever I can afford it I buy some sony DVD+Rs.

So far, I have burned around 35 DVDs. Up to this point I have been using two tests to make sure I got a "good burn." I use the Scan Disc function and I use the Transfer Rate Test in Nero DiscSpeed. So far, all my DVDs have passed both tests with flying colors.

When I burn a DVD movie I burn at the lowest possible speed. For the Memorex DVD+Rs I burn at 2.4x(LOWEST speed). For the SONY DVD-Rs, I burn at 2x(LOWEST SPEED).

Tonight I was testing a burned memorex DVD+R and the TRT was giving really bad, BAD results. Basically, my dvd drive would speed WAY up, then slow down....speed WAY up then slow WAY down. Mind you, the scan disc test worked perfectly fine.

Is my DVD burner going bad already? Why after 35 burns is the TRT starting to fail?

I have updated to the latest firmware version and I have the latest drivers for my system.

Got any advice for me? Is the TransferRateTest THAT important? Will just the scandisc test be enough to say I got a good burn?

System Info:

HardWare:

Motherboard: ASUS Striker Extreme
Memory: 2GB Corsair XMS DDR2-800
CPU: Intel C2D E6420
DVD Burner: LITE-ON LH-20A1L

SoftWare:

Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit
Burning program: TMPGenc DVD Author

I appreciate your comments!

Sincerely,

Nathan

Welcome to the forum

Since you have a LiteOn, try the Disc Quality Scan at 4x scan speed.

Transfer Rate Tests are important IMO, but with LiteOn drives, they're generally too good at reading to be completely trusted for TRT.

Having said that, it's better than nothing at all so, can you do something for us?

Run the Transfer Rate Test again, and once it's done, save the picture by clicking the little floppy-shaped icon in the top right of the window.

Save it as a .png file, and attach it to your next post here (Go Advanced -> Manage Attachments).

Edit: Nevermind, you're using Vista, there is no floppy-shaped icon with that.

Then we will have a better picture of what you're talking about

Hey thanks for replying! I have run the Transfer Rate Test at 8x and I got the same funky looking graph that I have been getting since last night.

Basically, the TRT is bad when I use Memorex DVD+Rs. I burned a Sony DVD-R today and it passed the TRT easily. Only thing odd about all this is that up til last night I had been using the Memorex DVD+Rs and they WERE PASSING the TRT perfectly. What is going on? Does my DVD burner suddenly NOT LIKE Memorex DVD+Rs?

When I run the TRT, my drive speeds up very fast for a second, then slows down. This pattern repeats a few times then the TRT graph starts to look like it normally should.

What thoughts do you have on this?

Here is what the TRT graph looks like when I tested the memorex DVD+R media:



I have also attached the TRT graph when I tested the Memorex DVD+R media.

I appreciate your thoughts on this issue,

Nathan

WOOPS,,,didn't mean for there to be two pictures of the same thing.! Sorry, my bad!

Nathan

Hi Nathan

Well...that certainly is funky at the start...and what's also weird, is that it's only reading at 6x max.

My LH-20A1H (PATA) reads a disc filled to that capacity at 16x, or very near it.

Can you run a Burst Rate test as well? Something may be wrong with the throughput of the drive.

If Sony discs passed with flying colours though, I certainly would suspect the media (Memorex) is at least part of the problem.

Edit: Regarding this suddenly happening with the Memorexes - the thing is with Memorex (and Philips, and TDK...), is that their discs come from many different manufacturers, some of which can be very variable in quality.

where did you get the latest firmware? do you use smartburn?

dont burn at 2x burn at 8x.

use cd-speed 47715
http://www.cdspeed2000.com/

use the create disc then on the same disc do a quality scan at 8x. post screens of both.

edit// 16x here too arachne with my 20A1P

Hello,

The reason I burn DVDs at the lowest possible speed is because I read on a forum that if you burn at the lowest speed it reduces the possibilities of write "errors." How do I know if I am using smart burn?

I'll get back with you all soon,

Thanks,




Nathan

P.S. How do I run a burst rate test?

please read these threads

http://club.cdfreaks.com/f33/media-faq-61943/
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f96/cd-dvd-...-guide-192563/
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f61/f-q-pc-...2006-a-118794/


here is the scans thread for 20A1S, same drive without lightscribe
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f44/lite-lh...s-here-209975/

http://club.cdfreaks.com/1736643-post61.html
http://club.cdfreaks.com/1737265-post66.html

smartburn is an advanced utility for lite-on drives. you would know if you were using it.

dont be fooled by the sony name and price tag. if you want reliable media at a low price you can search for deals or go to supermediastore.com and get Taiyo Yuden TYG02 100 packs for less than $30, shipping included. the price varies from time to time but the disc are always reliable.
http://supermediastore.com/taiyo-yud...d-r-media.html

just in case you dont have enough to read.

here is the FAQ for lite-on drives.
http://club.cdfreaks.com/f44/f-q-lit...2007-a-109986/

I'm afraid you have been misinformed like many others about the slowest burning speed being "best".

I suggest you have a look in this thread:

Did you know: Slow write speeds + modern drives + modern media = no good

Welcome to CDFreaks!

Bus Type Fibre
VID LITE-ON
PID DVDRW LH-20A1L
F/W Revision BL06
Date Code 2008/02/13 10:12
FlashROM Manufacturer ID EF
FlashROM Device ID 14
FlashROM Type NEX(NX25P16)
Region Unset
Vendor Resets Available 4
User Resets Available 5
RPC Scheme RPC II
Interleaved DMA Not Supported
Command queuing Not Supported
Overlap operation Not Supported
IORDY Supported
IORDY may be disabled Supported
LBA Supported
DMA Supported
Multiword DMA mode 2
PIO mode 4
Ultra DMA Mode 5
Minimum Multiword DMA transfer cycle time per word 120 ns
Manufacturer¡¦s recommended Multiword DMA transfer cycle time 120 ns
Minimum PIO transfer cycle time without flow control 120 ns
Minimum PIO transfer cycle time with IORDY flow control 120 ns
Major version number ATA/ATAPI-4
SMART feature set Not Supported
Security Mode feature set Not Supported
Removable Media feature set Not Supported
Power Management feature set Not Supported
Burst Rate 5.47 MB/S


I ran K-PROBE2 and I checked the Burst rate. It is only 5.47MB/S!!!

What is going on? How do I fix that?

Thanks. Also, when I try to run the smartburn utility..it just reads "querying device." It will sit there for like 5 minutues then I shut it down manually.

Help,,,,Im so lost!

Nathan

Do you know how your SATA is set up in the PC's BIOS? For example, SATA mode or IDE compatible mode?

It's set up as SATA. Just thought I'd also say this: Today I ran the smartburn utility and it worked for a few seconds..i was able to view the options and stuff. Then it froze up and I had to end the program. Now whenever I launch it, it just states that it's queying the device.

Hm....

Nathan

Hmmm. Some (optical) drives don't play very well with SATA mode.

But anyway. Have you tried a fresh SATA cable, or a different SATA port on your motherboard?

Do you have any kind of RAID set up, or are you using nVidia's stock SATA drivers?

I'll try that,,thanks for your help! And I would appreciate more comments on these issues..

THanks again,

Nathan

Albert's remark about nVidia drivers is worth looking at too, IMO. I've known their IDE drivers to cause problems, so wouldn't be surprised if their drivers are what it turns out to be

Bus Type Fibre
VID LITE-ON
PID DVDRW LH-20A1L
F/W Revision BL06
Date Code 2008/02/13 10:12
FlashROM Manufacturer ID EF
FlashROM Device ID 14
FlashROM Type NEX(NX25P16)
Region Unset
Vendor Resets Available 4
User Resets Available 5
RPC Scheme RPC II
Interleaved DMA Not Supported
Command queuing Not Supported
Overlap operation Not Supported
IORDY Supported
IORDY may be disabled Supported
LBA Supported
DMA Supported
Multiword DMA mode 2
PIO mode 4
Ultra DMA Mode 5
Minimum Multiword DMA transfer cycle time per word 120 ns
Manufacturer¡¦s recommended Multiword DMA transfer cycle time 120 ns
Minimum PIO transfer cycle time without flow control 120 ns
Minimum PIO transfer cycle time with IORDY flow control 120 ns
Major version number ATA/ATAPI-4
SMART feature set Not Supported
Security Mode feature set Not Supported
Removable Media feature set Not Supported
Power Management feature set Not Supported
Burst Rate 5.57 MB/S


Well I just got done installing the new SATA cable and I also plugged the drive into a different SATA port. Still getting the same results.

As far as drivers go, I am using the drivers off of Nvidia's website.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winvista_32_9.64.html <<those drivers.

Should I uninstall the Nvidia IDE drivers or what?

I appreciate all your help guys,

Thanks,

Nathan

By the way, I am NOT using RAID. Should I uninstall ALL nvidia drivers except the display driver? Should I just stick with the Vista drivers?

When I go to uninstall nvidia drivers here is what comes up:

Nvidia Display driver
Nvidia Ethernet Driver Components
Nvidia Media Shield
Nvidia Nforce PCI System Management Driver

What should I do?

Nathan

Try to use stock Microsoft generic drivers [that usually work with all non-RAID controllers] for the SATA controllers. Only remove nVidia Media Shield. Leave the Display, Ethernet, and PCI System Management drivers installed.

You may want to manually try to change your SATA controllers' drivers to the generic Windows drivers in the Device Manager before uninstalling using the nVidia uninstaller to make sure your system can get along fine.

Well, I did what you said and I'm still getting the same result. Burst speed is about 5.58MB/S.

What the hell is wrong?

Thanks,

Nathan

Do any of you have anymore thoughts on this? Does the burstrate have to be above 20MB/s for me go get good burn results? Like I said earlier, all the movies I have burned have turned out great. They play in both of my DVD players. And the scan disc test in discspeed turns out perfect.
The other thing that is bothering me is that when I use Sony media the TRT runs perfectly fine. Only the memorex is having have funky result.

Is it possible that the drive is going bad or that it IS bad? Should I go out and buy another one? Is Plextor better than Lite-on?

All I want is to be able to burn DVDs and play them in my DVD player without any errors.

Thanks for your help guys,

Nathan

It's quite a possibility that the drive has gone bad.

Can you burn at 8x & 16x and see if it has any issues?

OK, I will burn a DVD at 8x and at 16x. Do you want me to run a scan disc test and a TRT after i burn each one?

If so, that's what i'll do!

Thanks dude,

Nathan

Yes, please.