I have no idea if this has happened to anybody, but ever since I upgraded the firmware from 0051 to 0151 on my BTC 1004, I've noticed that the playback on Crystal Player is rather jumpy on movies and that the recording of DVD's went from a silky, smooth recording on Princo DVD+R (MCC 02) to a jerky, buffered SLOWWWW recording (with a high CPU utilization to boot) with the new 0151 firmware.

I usually use Nero for image writing and Alcohol 120 for the burining of the image (the combination works for me) and during my last recording I noticed that Alcohol insisted that the recording I was doing was not 2X, but rather 1.2X. So this time I switched to DVD burning only with Nero, and the recording lasted up to 41 minutes on what was supposed to have been a 2x recording. Hence, I don't think that the software is at fault here. Both Alcohol and Nero are having problems with the new firmware.

The only change I made with my computer since the last firmware upgrade was to install service pack 2 on my XP. Since the 0051 firmware was still doing a good job after the service pack install, I didn't think much of it. Could the service pack be at fault here? I don't think so.

When I did the 0151 firmware upgrade from the XP, using BTC's firmware upgrade program from their site, I noticed no problems from the system or the software, the flash program ending as usual and asking for the reboot. The fact that CD burnings with the 1004 is still OK is a testament that the software upgrade went without a hitch. This leads me to believe that there been a total rewrite of the 1004 burn strategy which has, in effect, crippled the 1004 DVD drive needlessly.

I don't think that the changes in the new firmware are as small as BTC seems to suggest assigning it with the 0151 designation. I think there has been more changes than is reported on the change sheet on their web site.

Is there any confirmation that this has happend to others, or am I the only one suffering from this problem?



BTW, the burning results for PRINCO DVD+R and DVD-R blank DVDs were OK (similar to that of the 0051 firmware). What bothers me is the fact that a 2x recording is no longer a 2x recording with the new firmware, as well as the high CPU core utilization.

Hi and welcome here,

your problem sounds like disabled DMA after the firmware flash. please check the DMA settings of the ide channel. If DMA is disabled enable it and try again.

hope this helps

Hello H3rB3i,

You're right. I have PIO mode where there use have DMA mode. But enabling it is not working at all. Not even with the reset. Removing the DVD recorder is out, since the motherboard complains because my ATI card seems to disappear when I try. Any suggestions? I can only think of attacking the registry as a solution, but that's quite a drastic one.

Uninstall the IDE Channel from device manager, and reboot your system after the restart the channel installs itself again. you can check also the bios settings for this channel, and try to enable DMA there.

Hello again H3rB3i,

...and thank you. Sorry to say my BIOS is so automatic and sofisticated that changing DMA setting is not option available for the mere consumer, but the XP uninstall of the IDE driver did the trick. It also corrected a small conflict with the Creative card, the Pinnacle card and my SMTP server, all at once. I wonder if uninstalling XP altogether will fix the rest of my problems with the computer? Who knows.

Again, thank you for your help and for saving my Saturday break.