Announcement

**Alegria** · 17 January 2000, 16:41

Hi,
does your 1540CP have a SCSISelect-Setup?
What are the settings for the DMA-Transfer-rate of the host adaptor, did you test the DMA-Transfer-Rate already? If you have the SCSI-Select BIOS there should be a Diagnostic Tool in the Main Menu.
IRQ look alright.
Did you change cables? Is Termination provided on both physical ENDS of the bus and NOWHERE ELSE?

Reply when applicable...
Regards Sascha

**paulcs** · 17 January 2000, 18:18

I have the exact same problem, and I believe I started seeing the problems after upgrading processors. I even went so far as to put the CD-R in a separate machine with only a single device connected to the bus, the CD-R. Same errors. The first machine had an Adaptec 2940 U2W, the second an Adaptec 2940 UW.

Passed the transfer rate test on both machines. I'm clueless. I'm going to try another software package. And another machine.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 18 January 2000).]

**Alegria** · 17 January 2000, 22:42

Hi there,
the DMA Transfer Test I refer to is not the same as synchronous transfer rate for the SCSI devices. The host adaptor transfer rate is the speed on which the 1540 can transfer data through its ISA DMA channel to and from memory. Since all modern boards use PCI to ISA bridges, the ISA Bus is not that compatible anymore to older ISA Busmaster cards especially those that rely on heavy DMA I/O. The reduced voltage on the bus (3.3V , before the Intel TX/LX PI/PII chipset it has been 5V) that determines logical states is a second problem.

Paulcs, your problem could be different because you use PCI controllers already.

You both seem to use Adaptec CD Creator, Easy CD Creator?
These Error messages seem too familiar.

If that hasn't been too much you're still welcome to reply...:-)

Regards, Sascha

**Alegria** · 17 January 2000, 22:45

Forgot to say: Did you get the latest ASPI-Layer from Adaptec?

till then
Sascha

**paulcs** · 17 January 2000, 22:46

I am (was) using EZ CD Creator v. 3.5. And you're right, they are too familiar.

I'd appreciate if you could recommend another program.

Thanks.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[This message has been edited by paulcs (edited 18 January 2000).]

**Alegria** · 17 January 2000, 22:56

I am using CDRWin on my Alpha workstation and my PIII for DAO purposes and NERO Burning ROM V4.0.7.5 on the Intel. Nero worked fine with my 2940 and 2940UW at speeds up to 8x with my Plex 20/8. Before that I used Adaptec and Corel CD Creator (Not EZ CD Creator) with a TEAC 55 S but never saw the problem on my machines.
I have seen some issues on machines with ISA Bus masters since I work in a computer wholesale/retail shop and have to deal with all kinds of hardware.

If you are into copying CDs the two programs might not be what you want (Copy protection).

For all other things they are just fine.

Regards Sascha

**yolk** · 18 January 2000, 08:06

Why not give this program a go ? After using it on my system I got no more buffer underun errors.

http://www.outertech.com/english/pro.../cacheman.html

**Alegria** · 18 January 2000, 23:15

Hi,

forgot to say that Nero uses a BurnProof feature now. It will determine the maximum writing speed and set it accordingly and it will close sessions from a buffer underrun situation.

Regards, Alegria

**bongo** · 19 January 2000, 14:00

Thanks for help all, but no fix as of yet. I will try the cache solution, but if that fails I am getting a new 8speed EIDE.

Any recommendations, HP, SONY Plextor or Panasonic. What is the advantage of 4mb buffer vs 2 mb buffer...thoughts??

**labrador** · 19 January 2000, 17:16

I have the same CD-R burner but I use the Asus SC200 SCSI card. I also run a P-II 266.

I have seen buffer underrun errors from copying CD to CD. With ATAPI/IDE CDROM readers this seems to be a shortfall of their performance. The solution I use is to click on the checkmark to write to disk first. If you only run into the problem with burning from CD-ROM sources then the CD-ROM reader and not the writer is the problem.
I've seen the same problem happen with a more expensive Plextor SCSI CD burner, and again the solution was to copy to disk (option checkbox).

For SCSI drivers I'm using the generic Symbios Logic C810 drivers that Windows 98 selected with plug and play rather than the ones from Asus.

**Jammrock** · 20 January 2000, 07:32

Bongo,

I too use a High point UDMA 66 controller, but I have it arranged a little different...

1) If you do not have any IDE devices on your Primary/Secondary IDE controllers on your board, disable them in BIOS to free up some IRQ's.

2) Get the UDMA 66 controller on its own IRQ! I don't know too much about the BIOS features on the BE6, but try to manually set the IRQ to 14 if you do not use your onboard IDE.

3) Disable SB Pro emulation unless you actually do DOS gaming. all it does it suck up system resources.

If you have an IDE CD-ROM drive that you are not telling us about, put in on the DMA 66 secondary as master. Are you getting the error messages going from cd-cdr or hdd-cdr or both?

I use Nero Burning ROM and Goldenhawk CD-R Win, they are both great programs. I currently like Nero a bit more (it has a great file burn system).

As for anew burner, I use a Plextor 8/4/32 EIDE drive. It is a wonderful drive and I have had no troubles with it. In my expirience Plextors have always been trouble free, and you can get one of these online for around $220. Imation make a decent 8/20 IDE burner that you may be able to find for a bit less.

If you do scrap your SCSI, put your HDD on Primary-Master (DMA 66), CD-R on Secondry-Slave (DMA 66) and CD-ROM/DVD-ROM on Secondary-Master (DMA 33). I do this and it works perfectly for all my burning! If you have troubles with the CD-R on the DMA 66 chain, move it to the DMA 33 chanel.

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.

**bongo** · 23 January 2000, 19:02

This a longshot as a solution the the 2x only burning problem, but I noticed in the MSconfig.exe in WIN98, under ADVANCED, that an option called "use SCSI dble-bufferring" was BOTH checked off and greyed out. I cannot remove the check mark and am wondering if this default is creating the problem with the SCSI card....thoughts...can this check mark be removed....

**Wombat** · 23 January 2000, 19:42

Have you tried different CD-R's? Some drives just aren't compatible with certain discs, or burn them more slowly. My friend's CD-R drive doesn't do anything at full speed except for Verbatim blue discs. I find the blue (DataLife+) to be best; yellow ones seem to burn slower.

**Alegria** · 23 January 2000, 23:40

Hi Bongo, you can do that manually using notepad to alter your MSDOS.SYS file.
Change its read only attribute (take it away)and open the file with some editor.
Remove or change the line
DoubleBuffer=1
to DoubleBuffer=0
if you want to switch to unbuffered and vice versa if you want to use it.
Save the file and restart to make the changes take effect.

A second thing worth a try is setting up your DMA controller to use a fixed buffer size. You can change this by using the device manager. Open the system components and then open the DMA Controller. Under SETTINGS you can give it a try to reserve a buffer.

Regards, Sascha

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CD Writer Problem driving Bongo Nuts!

CD Writer Problem driving Bongo Nuts!

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