Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ThatAdamGuy]

I have a pretty beefy system (Win XP p2.4gz, 1 gig of RAM), but when I rip CDs with MC10, my system pretty much slows to a crawl.  I don't notice such a slowdown when I rip with other programs.

In case it matters, I'm using a 52x speed CD/RW drive and ripping to WMA-VBR-Normal/High.  Speeds average around 20-22x.

Is this related to some DMA thingy that I read about in another thread, or is that only for CD burning?

Or is it just that MC10, being a beta, is not yet code-optimized, hence the slowdown from that?

(alas, I had not tried ripping on MC9, so I don't have that to compare to)

[NoCodeUK]

I would think having DMA enabled would help with ripping to.  DMA stands for Direct Memory Access.  It basically means your CD ROM can directly access memory without having to ask permission from the processor.  Depending on what OS you are using there are different ways to enable it...looking at your PC spec I would guess you are using XP so this what you need to do.  Right click on my computer and go to the device manager.  Find an entry called primary ide controller.  Open it and you should see an entry there for your HD and CDROM (depending which channel they are installed on but its usually primary).  Open the options for your device and select DMA mode (if it is off it will say PIO mode only).  Reboot your machine and try ripping again, the process should be sped up sa it should no longer be using the CPU...hope this helps

Adam

[ThatAdamGuy]

Hmm... well, both devices on my primary controller were already set to DMA, and one out of two on my secondary controller were set to DMA.  I flipped the switch on the remaining (PIO) one, rebooted... and alas, ripping using MC still dramatically slows down my computer.

I should have noted earlier that ripping with other programs (such as WMP9) does NOT have the same negative effect.

Any other ideas?

[Marko]

wonder if there's an encoder problem going on here?

What filetype are you ripping to and with what encoder settings? (like maybe, mp3, 320kbps)
are the files being saved onto a network/external drive?

I ripped 3 discs to ape using the previous version and it was fast enough with no performance hit. Once we know what settings you're using, we can better advise.

[ThatAdamGuy]

In case it matters, I'm using a 52x speed CD/RW drive and ripping to WMA-VBR-Normal/High.

[Marko]

ok, (apologies), no network/external drive thing going on either?

I've ripped the cd in my sig to ape and almost done to wma vbr normal/high while making this post. no lag. Got ~10x for the apes, getting the same for the .wma's.I'm set to rip/encode simultaneously, delete temp wavs, and analyse during rip.

Strange that other rippers don't display the problem for you. Guess that kinda rules out hardware conflicts. You just might be running something that MC doesn't get along with, nero InCD or anything similar installed?

My sys info...
Media Center Registered 10.0.18 -- C:\Program Files\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 1599 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 492 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1276 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.71 (0001) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-2002 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.71 (0001)

Ripping /   Drive P:   Copy mode:Normal   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Drive Q:   Copy mode:ModeSecure   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Drive R:   Copy mode:ModeSecure   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: Yes  Soundfile:   C:\WINDOWS\Media\tada.wav

Burning /  Drive Q: TDK      DVDRW0404N         Addr: 2:0:0  Speed:16  MaxSpeed:16  BurnProof:Yes
  Drive R: PLEXTOR  CD-R   PX-W1610A   Addr: 2:1:0  Speed:16  MaxSpeed:16  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[ThatAdamGuy]

Hi Marko, thanks for your thoughtfulness in helping me troubleshoot!

And no, no network or anything.  I do have a nero plugin installed, but no inCD thingy (that's for CDRW, right?), at least I don't think so.

Interestingly, MC10 seems to rip faster than WMP9, but if I could have it disrupt my system less, I wouldn't mind it ripping a bit slower .  

---

Media Center 10.0.18 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center\

Microsoft Windows XP  Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2522 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1047 MB, Free - 680 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1276 / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1233 (xpsp2.030604-1804) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D:   Copy mode:Normal   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Drive E:   Copy mode:Normal   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
  Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: Yes /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
  Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: Yes  Soundfile:   C:\WINDOWS\Media\Windows XP Print complete.wav

Burning /  Drive E: ATAPI    CD-RW 52X24        Addr: 1:1:0  Speed:8  MaxSpeed:52  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[Marko]

First of all, I never tried this wma format before... sounds pretty darn good btw!!

Now, I'm trying to get an idea about your drive config. You have 2 cd drives, and presumably, from your other posts, 2 hard drives?

If you have them set up with 1 hard drive and one cd drive on each channel (your sys info appears to suggest your 52x drive is a slave device on the primary eide, though again, I may be reading that wrongly). If it is though, and you're ripping wma's to the hard drive on the same eide channel, MC is running as fast as your system will allow it too, that means that you've got data going both ways up the same eide channel, with the hard drive speed dragged down to match the cd drive speed = lottsa lag!!
You can choke the drives read speed in MC's options > device settings > advanced ripping options btw, maybe try that and see if it improves things?

There's a lot of summising going on there, it continues here too, because why doesn't wmp behave like this? You said it rips slower, so I'm going to continue summising and suggest that maybe it doesn't run under the same conditions\priorities as MC and leaves room for other stuff that's going on?

Without more, that's me out of ideas. If I'm right about your drive setup, try setting both cd drives on the same eide channel, set your burning drive as the master, even if it doesn't fix the MC problem, your whole system will deffo run smoother that way.

(I'm off to bed now, catch y'all tomorrow )

[ThatAdamGuy]

Whew!  Well, this is definitely weird.

I'm gonna post my detailed system info (two hard drives, two CD drives), and then my observations.  Tackle at will (either my problems, or me for taking up your time )

---

Intel(r) 82801DB UltraATA Storage Controller-24CB

Primary 0: Ultra DMA Mode 5
Primary 1: Ultra DMA Mode 5

Secondary 0: Ultra DMA Mode 2
Secondary 1: PIO Mode (even after "DMA if available" was set and I rebooted)

HD0: 60 gb - Location 0 (0) (boot drive)
HD1: 250gb - Location 1 (1)

CD0: Liteon DVD-ROM - Location 0 (0)
CD1: ATAPI CD-RW 52x24 - Location 1 (1)

--------------

- CD0 came with my system.  I bought and installed both HD1 and CD1 separately.

- Playing a music CD with CD1 renders my system so slow that even the music is garbled on ANY player.  This may be a new phenomena; I don't remember this happening months ago.

- I can actually rip music accurately (and ungarbled) with CD1, but since it slows down my system really really bad (worse than 'to a crawl'), I obviously don't use this drive for ripping presently.

- If I rip at max (20-22x) with CD0 using MC10, the system slows moderately (I think my "to a crawl" in this context was unfortunately exaggerating).  It's annoying, but bearable.  I can still play MP3s while ripping.

- If I rip with CD0 using WMP9, it doesn't seem to rip as fast (but WMP9 doesn't list speeds), and my system does not slow down.

- Also, if I throttle down CD0 on MC10 to 8x, my system does not slow down.

-------

It's been months since I first installed CD1, so I don't recall how I set things up physically (is it possible to tell from the description of my system specs above?).  I guess, especially given your comments, Marko, that I should open up my computer (ack, and deal with all the dust and wires under there... eegads!) and maybe adjust my setup.  Or I could just throttle down my ripping speed to 8x (why doesn't MC10 have anything in between 8 and 22x? grrr!) and simply avoid the problem, eh?

Anyway, thanks for any additional insight you might have!  I think this has clearly strayed from MC10 issues, so if mods wanna move this to a non-MC topic, I'm cool with that.

[gpvillamil]

I've got to think Adam is using a different encoder or different settings on the other programs. Default config on WMP9 flies (but doesn't sound so good!), ripping to MC VBR requires a bit more horsepower but sounds a lot better.

[ThatAdamGuy]

gp, I did verify that I was using the exact same settings (WMA9-VBR-Normal/High) on both MC10 and WMA9.

[Sauzee]

You might want to consider putting your HDD's and CD drives on separate IDE controllers.

Also your ATAPI CDRW is running in PIO mode.  Try uninstalling the drive in Device Manager, rebooting and see if the mode changes to DMA. PIO mode is very slow and will slow your PC and when the drive is in use.

[Marko]

You might want to consider putting your HDD's and CD drives on separate IDE controllers.

Also your ATAPI CDRW is running in PIO mode.  Try uninstalling the drive in Device Manager, rebooting and see if the mode changes to DMA. PIO mode is very slow and will slow your PC and when the drive is in use.

ThatAdamGuy has said that his drives are sorted correctly on different controllers (though his sys info appears to say otherwise). He's also said that one of his drives won't take the DMA setting and stick with it. I didn't pursue that one any further as it's not uncommon. My Plexwriter won't run in DMA mode without a "jumper hack" but inspite of that, I've never had any probs with it as master originally, and now as slave to my DVD\cd writer on the secondary eide.

Before this one goes anywhere else, I think that ThatAdamGuy has to open his case and visually confirm his drive configuration. If it's found that he has a cd drive sharing eide with his system HD and he sorts that out, it could be all that's needed to fix this problem.

[ThatAdamGuy]

I'm home really really late tonight (2 hours of gym, + 3 hours of dancing), but I will open my computers innards tomorrow, er, later today and report back here

Thanks again for the help, everyone!

[ThatAdamGuy]

Okay, just opened up my system and had a look.

My hard drives are attached to my primary controller.
My CD and DVD-ROM drives are attached to my secondary controller.

So this does again raise questions as to why the CD-ROM drives'd be slowing down my system.  Bummer :|