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[mxnmatch]

Ripping starts out at 20x for the first tracks of a CD. But then it slows down as it goes on until the final track is ripped at 0.1x.

Some searching turned up that some players have problems with the final tracks of CDs. There's an "offset" setting that apparently can be used to correct for this. However, I don't see that setting in Media Center anywhere.

Does that setting exist in Media Center? If not, is there some other way to deal with this problem?

[rjm]

I have observed this behavior from time to time but my slow down is not as extreme as you are reporting.

Cleaning the disc or switching to a different drive (I have 3 optical drives) often helps. Sometimes a reboot also helps (presumably because this resets drive).

I am not aware of any software settings to address this issue.

Just to be certain it is not a software issue I would try a rip with another tool like Windows Media Player.

In the end you may have to buy a new drive but the good news is they are very cheap these days.

cdfreaks.com is a very good resource for hard core reviews of drives.

[mxnmatch]

Hmmm. I installed two more optical drives. All three behave differently.

drive 1:  Does fine until the last 4 tracks when it quickly dives to 0.1x speed. Also, on one troublesome disc it completely fails to read the last track.
drive 2:  Does fine until the last track when it quickly dives to 0.1x speed. On that troublesome disc it actually crashes Media Center when ripping the last track. (It does it ever time.)
drive 3:  Does fine for the first half of a cd. Slows down to about 1.5x for the last half of the CD, but never goes below 1.0x. It is able to rip all tracks on the troublesome disc.

I'm sticking with drive 3 simply because it seems able to successfully rip every cd without ever going below 1.0x. Theoretically I could get greater speed by ripping all but the last 4 tracks in drive 1 and then ripping the last 4 tracks in drive 3. But, that's too much disc switching for me.

I'm trying to rip the discs for 4 different unabridged audio books that I just bought. At this rate it is going to take a VERY long time to rip all the discs (there are something like 100 discs total). I'm tempted to go to the store and buy one of every optical drive in the store and just try all of them.

[rjm]

Make sure you are using Secure copy mode. (options\CD&DVD\CD Ripping\Advanced Ripping Options\Copy mode\secure).

And while you are there set:
   read speed to max
   auto-create log file in secure rip mode

Secure mode does multiple reads to ensure the data extracted from the disc is good. At the end of each rip close the action window to review the log. If one or more tracks are bad, you can deleted the specific tracks, clean the disc again, and re-rip just the bad tracks.

Secure mode is slower but if it reports all is ok then you can be certain your rip is good. I think this is essential when ripping problematic discs such as those you are working with.