Why is LiteOn LTR-52327S so slow?

[ronross]

Here are the results from Nero CD speed on a clean commercial audio CD:

CD Speed

05 March 2004 - 3:22:34

CD-ROM drive information
Vendor LITE-ON
Product LTR-52327S
Firmware Version QS54

CD information
Type Audio
Length 64:57.45

Test results

Transfer rate
Average 23.70x
Start 14.25x
End 31.16x
Reading type CAV

DAE quality
Score 10
Accurate stream Yes

Seek times
Random 76 ms
1/3 Seek 90 ms
Full 150 ms

CPU usage
1X 4%
2X 6%
4X 18%
8X 34%
-----------------------------
DMA is enabled in both device manager and the bios. CD-RW is Master on Secondary Channel.

Rips in EAC and CDEX run at ~5Xs

Per LiteOn message board firmware is OEM and there is no update available. Apparently the latest firmware available from LiteOn doesn't recognize these OEM drives.

What's up?

Thanks, Ron

[CDRecorder]

Is DMA enabled? Have you tried another disc?

[ronross]

Is DMA enabled? Have you tried another disc?

Yes, DMA is enabled in both the device manager and bios, and several commerically pressed audio CDs show the same mediochre result.

[CDRecorder]

What are the specs on your computer (OS, CPU, RAM, motherboard or system brand and model, other drives, etc)?

[ronross]

What are the specs on your computer (OS, CPU, RAM, motherboard or system brand and model, other drives, etc)?

Well, I'm happy to tell you but I don't think it's relevant, given that the Plextor 24/10/40 that the LiteOn replaced ripped at over 30x.

Windows XP home
Pentium III 750 oc'd to 878
Abit bx-6 rev2
LiteOn is master on secondary channel with a HD as slave

[Justin42]

I thought I read somewhere that some of the newer LiteOns have glitches in the firmware that the DAE speed is locked to a fairly slow speed for some reason-- that if you attempt to rip as soon as you put the disc in, it should go faster, but if you allow the disc to spin down before ripping, it locks into 8X max?

I only mention this because none of my LiteOns are speed demons ripping (I have a 48246s, 52246s, and a 52327s, on 3 different machines) and I just kind of accepted that explanation.

[CDRecorder]

I just tried something with my drives, and got an interesting result. One pressed CD got just about the same results you did, and another pressed CD began ripping at about 18x. A CD-R copy of the first pressed CD began extracting at 21x, and its speed increased constantly.

Have you tried extracting audio from a CD-R disc?

[rdgrimes]

I don't see anything here that suggest a real problem with the drive. Need a bit more information to know, but the disc itself is only 64 min, so of course it's not going to hit top speed.