Sony DRU710A won't burn over 2x

[diskdocx]

Hi everyone, great forum! Have been looking through the posts and faqs, and still can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong

Just before the holidays I upgraded from a Sony DRU500A to the new 710A. I had the latest firmware for the 500A and was able to burn up to 4x on +/-r media. I should be able to burn up to 16x with the new 710A, and I am using the latest firmware from Sony (BY02)

I have tried a variety of media (some cheap, some good quality), but I never seem to be able to achieve speeds over 2x (2.4x for +r). This morning I was using Memorex 4x branded media, and in Nero it only lets me choose 4x for the burn speed, but the DVD takes about 25 minutes to burn (Nero says it should have been finished in 14 minutes). With DiscJuggler, it lets me choose the speed, but once the burn starts the actual write speed always drops to 2x. Originally I thought it was the media, but other people are able to burn at 4x and 8x on the same media.

I am running Windows 2000, service pack 4.
1.73 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP, ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7V8X-X motherboard with over 1gig of RAM.

I have checked the DMA setting and it is on Ultra DMA for primary IDE, but PIO for secondary (I have now changed both to DMA).

I am burning data from the hard drive, not ripping/burning at the same time.

Any other thoughts? I was wondering if I should uninstall Nero and DiscJuggler, and then uninstall the burner, then reinstall everything. If so, how do I unistall the firmware upgrade?

[diskdocx]

correction, I actually have the BYX2 upgrade, not BY02

[Gen-An]

Did the DMA setting stick?

[diskdocx]

Yes, it did, but I'm sure the burner is on the primary IDE not secondary. Do both have to be DMA?

[Gen-An]

Yes, the HDD and the burner need to be set to DMA mode.

[VideoRoy]

diskdocx,

We seem to be on a similar path. I also just purchased the DRU710a after using the DRU500a since it was released. I wish I had found this forum before getting the DRU710a but based on my experience with Sony before I feel pretty good they will solve the FW issues. Plus I got the drive at a fantastic price and could not pass it up even if I only were to use it for 8x.

I also went to the BYX2 firmware and had a very bad experience. While I could burn at the rated speeds no problem the resulting DVD was horrible. I was using Sony DVD-r Media by the way. After messing around for about a week I finally got a hold of Sony they told me to downgrade to BY02 and and stick with Verbatim it solved my quality problems.

Not saying this will fix your issue just FYI. I am mostly using 8x DVD-R and 4x DVD-R. I have successfully used Verbatim, Ritek, Maxell DVD-R and HP, Verbatim and Sony +RW.

[VideoRoy]

One other thing that may be of interest if you are using DVD+R , +RW. With Nero it will automatically set the BookType to DVD-ROM by default. I found this very helpful and may start using more +R media now.

You can change the default but that was the why it was set when I installed.

[diskdocx]

Well, even using the BYX2 firmware, the burn quality has never been a problem. That being said, I almost exclusively use Verbatim +/-RW for general use, and Memorex +/-R for data backup. I have burned some cheap discs for friends, and they have had varying success. With the price of media being so cheap, I think it is best to stick to the slightly more expensive name brands. (I've bought 50packs of Memorex for $25 CDN).

It seems as if changing both the primary and secondary IDE to DMA has solved the problem. I burned a couple of +R at 4x today (yay!). I need to get my hands on some 8x to investigate further.

I may switch to BY02, but again, for my own use I prefer to burn at slower speeds to ensure quality.

Thanks to everyone for the replies and help