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When I burn audio CDs on my LTR-52327S drives with Nero 5.5.10.50 (with overburn patch), the drive LED always lights up orange through the entire burn like it would when a buffer-underrun is occuring. However, the buffer stays full, and SMART-BURN doesn't kick in to limit the recording speed.

I am burning from MP3 files (my PC is powerful enough to do this at 52x), and I have noticed this with Imation 32x media burned at the SMART-BURN limit of 24x, TDK 40x (Ritek) media burned at the SMART-BURN limit of 52x, and, if I remember correctly, Philips 48x (CMC) media burned at the SMART-BURN limit of 40x. I assume it would happen on other media, but I haven't burned any audio CDs on TY media (the only other kind I have) with the 52327S drives yet.

This happens on both of my 52327S drives, and it happens with several entirely different sets of MP3 files legally downloaded from several different sources. I am burning in DAO mode with CD-Text enabled, if that is important.

Has anyone else observed this behavior? This doesn't seem to happen when burning data. BTW, the audio discs work perfectly; I just thought it seemed strange that the light was orange instead of red.

Edit: I should have mentioned that both of my LTR-52327S drives have firmware version QS0A.

When the orange light comes onthat means that the buffer underun has kicked it. To help or prevent this from happening you need to enable DMA in Device Manager. This will help to prevent buffer underuns and the orange light from coming on.

BTW what OS are you using ?

I'm running Windows XP Home SP1, and DMA is enabled for every drive in the system. The three CD-RW drives are all attached to the motherboard's onboard IDE controller, and they are all running in UDMA Mode 2. The hard drive is attached to a Promise Ultra133TX2, and it is running in UDMA Mode 6.

BTW, the buffer always stays between 95 and 100%, so it isn't having a buffer underrun. The CPU usage is also very low when burning (unless I'm burning MP3s at full speed; then the CPU usage is noticibly higher). This only happens with audio CDs, not data CDs.

I also noticed that when I burn audio CDs (from WAV or MP3 files), the light stays red if I select a low speed like 8x.

On the 7S drive, the yellow light only activates for one reason, buffer. Don't be fooled by the read buffer, it's the drive buffer you're watching. If it's fluctuating, that's your problem. Watching the actual burn speed in Nero should tell you what's happening. Watching your CPU utilization should also give a clue. The actual burn time for a full disc should also be an indicator of the burn speed.
Otherwise it's some odd bug in the drive.

Neither the read buffer nor the drive buffer fluctuates; both are always full. The actual burn speed reported in Nero is always normal, and the CPU utilization is fine. The burn time is also normal for the selected recording speed. I guess I'll have to do a few more tests to see what is happening.

CDRecorder wrote:When I burn audio CDs on my LTR-52327S drives with Nero 5.5.10.50 (with overburn patch), the drive LED always lights up orange through the entire burn like it would when a buffer-underrun is occuring. However, the buffer stays full, and SMART-BURN doesn't kick in to limit the recording speed.

It happen to me some day, I was copying an Audio CD several copies, it begins with the 3rd or 4th copy, but no problems found on any of the copies, also Nero didn't report buffer underrun at all.

Really weird

Out of curiosity, what firmware revision do you have, and what media were you using? Were your burning from MP3 or uncompressed audio, and were you burning at the maximum speed for your media?

If I remember well it had QS09, first thing I did when I bouht it was upgrage to QS09.

There was no files, was a copy of an Audio CD with the copy option on the same drive, so an image was genereated.

Media was Verbatim ValuLife 48x (CMC) @52x.

Thanks! I was just wondering if it had something to do with my media, my firmware, or the files from which I was burning, but since you have different media, firmware, and method of burning, it looks like it must be something that the LTR-52327S does.

interesting, need to finally install my new drive & try it !

Even if your CPU is powerful enough, background programs can interfere with the burning process.

Also if the data is heavily fragmented, your harddrive spends a bit more time looking for them.

Are you burning to 2 burners at the same time?

I don't think this will make a difference, but try DAO/96.

I don't think I had any other programs open at that time, and if anything was open, no programs were actually doing anything.

The data also wasn't fragmented; my hard drives never get very fragmented because I defragment them regularly.

I was only burning to one burner; the other optical drives were idle.

I'll try DAO/96 when I get a chance. Thanks for the suggestion!

just trialed this out, burnt a 79minute audio cd in nero 6.0.0.19

The entire burn process was ORANGE on the led, burning data cd's is always red.

I have a very capable system so buffer underon is nowhere near close and the burn process took the usual 2 minutes 30 something seconds

I did some research and found this on Liteons FAQ page

Orange LED light (when green and red lights lit together) indicates Buffer UnderRun protection function enabled.

So this is Buffer underrun protection kicking in to protect against underrun regardles sof buffer size and from what ive tried it ONLY kicks in regardless of buffer size in audio cd burning mode, the mode that would need the best quality burn.


This I see as fair enough and the drive is functioning normally so nothing to be worried about

Thanks for the explanation, Mrk1283. Yes, that sounds reasonable that the LTR-52327S is somehow enabling extra protection for the audio CDs. In any case, I've observed that my burn times are normal, and my CDs come out fine. The only thing that I still wonder about is that the red light comes on if I burn slower than the Smart-Burn limit (like burning my 32x Imation discs (Smart-Burn limit is 24x) at 8x).

That's also fine, as you are burning slower than the SMARTBURN rated speed buffer underun or write rror should not occur on normal data writing hence why you get flahing red/orange or sconstant orange. I've yet to encounter a problem with this at all and I've gone through numerous 50's spindles in the last few months

IIRC only the orange light (smart burn) should kick in if you are writing an audio cd or the medium is eratic or the burn process is affected someway (dirt/scratched media etc)

That's good. I didn't really think that there was a problem because everything seemed fine, but I have just been wondering why the orange light came on. Thanks!

:p I read the same in the manual too but I threw that away heh