Announcement

**Fat Tone** · 19 January 2000, 06:13

That would be the third (different) CD-writer I have come across that demands to be Master, on its own.

Try putting the DVD as slave to your HD - I've seen people says they get better tx rates that way.

I don't see any reason for the joystick connection. Make sure you have the latest soundcard and DX7a drivers just in case.

Good Luck.

Tony.

[This message has been edited by Tony Andrews (edited 19 January 2000).]

**elmes** · 19 January 2000, 06:17

Cheers Tony, the only reason I didn't put the DVD as primary slave was the IDE cable connector doesn't reach, guess I'm gonna have fun stripping it all down tonight - sigh...
Guess it doesn't then affect hard disk performance???

**Jammrock** · 19 January 2000, 06:56

I had a slight disturbance with my Plextor 8/4/32A, too. I tried to connect it as the Secondary Master on my Hot Rod 66 card, without a slave and man did my system not like that. The drive is safely on the onboard secondary IDE chain as master now.

Here is my suggestion:

IF you are going to do CD to CD copies a whole lot, put the DVD as the Primary Slave and the Plextor as Secondary Master. The main downfall of doing this is that any data copies from the DVD-ROM to your HDD may be slow and iradic (IDE is not as stable as SCSI). So if you need to copy stuff from a CD to your HDD, use your Plextor.

IF you do not plan on doing CD to CD copies, put the Plextor as your Secondary Master and the DVD-ROM as your Secondary Slave. Doing a CD to CD copy using this setup may result in bad burns or slower burn speeds. I had my CL 6x DVD on Sec Slave and Plex as Sec Master for a while and couldn't burn at more than 4x when doing a CD to CD copy. Now that the Plex and DVD are on seperate chains I can do full speed 8x CD copies.

My $0.02.

Jammrock

------------------
PIII 450@504, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB total w/ WD Experts, Abit UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, PLEXTOR 8x4x32 ATAPI CD-RW (my newest toy), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverCrack addict.

**elmes** · 19 January 2000, 07:04

Ok I'll put them on separate channels.
If I still get my force-feedback lockup problem (after updating DX7 to DX7a etc) I guess I'll have to make a choice about what to keep, the wheel or the writer...

**Le Bodge** · 19 January 2000, 07:40

Keep the wheel and play Sports Car GT - It's great!

Le B.

**elmes** · 19 January 2000, 07:44

Ok, I only got the 8x writer to pose anyway.

**Fat Tone** · 20 January 2000, 01:08

Give me the wheel - I've only got the stick version!

But seriously, let us know how you get on.

**elmes** · 20 January 2000, 03:50

Ok this is the score now. The HD and DVD are on the primary, the writer is on secondary as master, the wheel problem is still there (force feedback causes lockup/crashes etc).

Also, to anyone with the plexwriter, when running the drive performance tester, it says 6x record is the max recommended from my DVD (it says 'too slow' under the 8x column) but the DVD is a 32x CDRom! Even more stupid is it recommends 1x recording from the HD (when it was reporting over 10mb/sec throughput whilst testing). Basically the only time I can use 8x write is from an HD image. This is boll.... surely.
Athlon650/MSI6167/IBM22GB66/SamsungDVD/Plexriter8x4x32/256MB Ram/MatroxG400 32MB DH

**Jammrock** · 20 January 2000, 06:55

A few questions:

1) Drive performance tester? Is this a Plextor application or a third party app? I never ran it on my system and I can go from CD to CD at 8x with my DVD (6x DVD/32x CD).

2) What software are you using to burn? I used to use Adaptec's Easy CD 4, but I didn't like it. Try out Nero Burning ROM, its MUCH better.

3) Have you updated the firmware for your Plextor to 1.05 yet? I did and it burns a bit smoother now. Maybe you need to flash the DVD firmware, too (check what the flash does before you do it).

4) The whole problem with the wheel may be in the SB Live! There is a 'driver patch' in addition to LiveWare 3.0 that you may need to download ( http://www.sblive.com/liveware/drivers.html ). Does the Wheel only lock up in one game? Have you tried the wheel in other games?

Jammrock

[This message has been edited by Jammrock (edited 20 January 2000).]

**elmes** · 20 January 2000, 09:40

Wow, this is what I call service.
I'll do everything you suggest.
1. I use the provided plextor apps, guess I can ignore it then.
2. Again, the only software I am using is what was provided with the writer (CDWriter).
3. Ok, I'll do that. Does it affect the guarentee updating the firmware?
4. Ok I'll download the driver/s.
The PC lockup/crashes are only when the force-feedback button is on, but it's PC-wide. Eg. snow boarding gets a kernel error(?), but unplug the wheel and it's fine.
Most other games run at 1 frame a year and the windows desktop is locky with the mouse hardly moving (in bursts). The MSwheel driver reports an error with force feedback when you try and 'test forces' and says to re-install drivers. Done all that. Anyway as soon as I disable the writer, the wheel is ok (I disable the secondary IDE in the BIOS to prove).
I know it makes no sense, there are no interrupt conflicts and the wheel doesn't even have it's own anyway.
Sob, sniffle...

**elmes** · 21 January 2000, 03:36

Jammrock, if you want to slap me you'll probably have to queue up behind everyone else...
I found out what the cause is (by accident).
I noticed my SBLive Platinum device controls was missing the Digital I/O tab and so I took the PC apart and checked the back of the Live Drive panel and noticed the ribbon connector was loose - I must have dislodged it when I was trying to force (get it) in the new writer . As the force-feedback works off MIDI it all adds up.
Think I'll leave the back on my PC now - for good. Thanks again...

**Jammrock** · 21 January 2000, 06:25

hehehehehe...elmes, its okay man.

My computer locked up in Win98 one day so I rebooted and my computer didn't come back up. I tried everything to get it back...reset the BIOS, pulled out all the peripherals except video, RAM and CPU. Eventually I pulled out the motherboard and put it on a different power supply, and it booted. I put it back on the main power supply and then it suddenly boot up again. I plugged the board back in and it stopped booting. After another 5 minutes of troubleshooting I found out that when I plugged in the reset button to the motherboard it stopped booting. So I went to the rest button and tapped it...the button popped out and everything worked fine. It took me 2 hours to figure out that the DAMN reset button was stuck so the computer was on a constant reboot...

Now that really sucked.

Jammrock

------------------
PIII 450@504, 256 MB RAM, 35 GB total w/ WD Experts, Abit UDMA 66 controller, CL 6x DVD, PLEXTOR 8x4x32 ATAPI CD-RW (my newest toy), G400 32 MB DH, SB Live! w/ Digital I/O, LinkSys Etherfast 10/100, DSI 56k modem, Addtronics 6896A Case w/ a crap load of fans and Dynmat noise dampening, MAG DX715T monitor.

Hi, my name is Jammrock. I'm a computer phreak and an EverCrack addict.

**Fat Tone** · 21 January 2000, 06:38

Elmes, I suspect you've already slapped your own forehead, so we'll let you off.

Glad you got it fixed.

Tony.

Announcement

CDWriter/Forcefeedback problem

CDWriter/Forcefeedback problem

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment