Current setup:
IDE0 Master=C: (80GB)
IDE0 Slave=D: (80GB)
IDE1 Master=Toshiba DVD-CD/RW
IDE1 Slave=E: (120GB)
All temp files in MC9.1 to D: drive
Current situation:
I burn a playlist onto 80min media, using about 76 minutes worth.
Some burns skip and track poorly (lots of seeking to find the start of a track)
Some burns show static on later tracks
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Omni's suggestion to try another burning program:Yes. Instant CD/DVD 6.4 worked better at both 8x and 16x speeds. Its temp directories were set to various subdirectories on the C: drive, but I was burning WAVs directly from the D: drive. I didn't get static, but the skipping was about the same.
Unfortunately, it puts a 2s. gap between tracks. I found out how to eliminate the gap, but there is an audible "click" when the gap length is set to 0s.
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JimH:Yes, the WAV images from all burned discs are the same when compared with EAC's "Compare WAV" function.
I don't know what you mean about different colored discs. I've only seen silver & black, and someone told me a long time ago that the black ones were usually hard to get clean burns on, so I've always stuck to the silver ones.
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JohnT:Yes, I think the drives and burner are running in DMA mode.
I did some shooting in the dark and updated my motherboard BIOS (Asus p4b533-VM) and installed all the latest Intel chipset drivers and the latest Intel Application Accelerator (v2.3). I know the Intel App Accelerator has something to do with the IDE bus, but I have no idea if it helps it or hurts it. Regardless, none of the updates seem to have made a difference. (Except for exasperating me...I want my Mac back)
I also triple-checked to make sure my burner's firmware is up-to-date...it is.
The IAC report shows the drives are running in DMA5 mode and the burner is running in DMA2 mode.
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Making the burner the Master on the secondary IDE bus didn't really help. This time, instead of having static at 8x speed, I had static at 16x speed. I'm going to try a few more discs with my other burning program (while my drives are connected in my default configureation) to see if it really is producing good burns. One irritating thing is that sometimes the problems happen when burning slowly, other times when burning at maximum speed, sometimes when decoding directly to disc, and other times when not decoding. There hasn't been a pattern that I can discern.
Any other ideas for things to check in MC? Any suggestions for other DVD-CD/RW drives? The current one is out of warranty, so I guess I would look into replacing it if neccessary.
Thanks!
Brad