Arch Linux

colnago

Member

From: Victoria, BC

Registered: 2004-03-25

Posts: 438

k3b burning speed

Hello,

I have had a problem with k3b for some time.  It just never seems to burn CDs faster than about 16x.  If I try faster, it just bounces around with the buffer filling and then emptying until the CD is finished, thank goodness for burnfree.  Average in the end is usually about 14x.

My computer is a 2GHz ATHLON/nForce2 with 512MB memory and an LG 52x burner.  52x _should_ be possible at the end of burning, it never gets close.

I have tried different kernels (kernel26, kernel26mm, custom morph-6 sources).  I have tried different schedulers (echo deadline > /sys/block/hdc/queue/scheduler).  And I have tried burning as root. 

Nothing shows high cpu or mem usage if top is going at the same time.

Here is what daemons I have running from /etc/rc.conf:
(syslog-ng hotplug network portmap fam dbus hal crond)

hda is my hard drive and hdc is the LG burner:
hdparm -I /dev/hda -> *udma5
hdparm -I /dev/hdc -> *udma2

I have dma cables on the drives.

Help.

shadowhand

Member

From: MN, USA

Registered: 2004-02-19

Posts: 1,142

Website

Re: k3b burning speed

Try SCSI emulation. Sometimes it makes a difference.

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colnago

Member

From: Victoria, BC

Registered: 2004-03-25

Posts: 438

Re: k3b burning speed

Thanks, I'll check it out.

tmadhavan

Member

From: Wales :D

Registered: 2004-03-26

Posts: 441

Re: k3b burning speed

i thought scsi emulation was deprecated for 2.6 kernels and CD-burning? How can it be used with 2.6? If it makes any difference I'd try it.

t

scarecrow

Member

From: Greece

Registered: 2004-11-18

Posts: 715

Re: k3b burning speed

Some burners feel unhappy when wired with 80-wire cables- the extra crosstalk provided confuses them.
Have you tried setting the burner as secondary master alone, or in company with another optical drive and using oldfashioned 40-wire cable?

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Microshaft delenda est

Kern

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2005-02-09

Posts: 464

Re: k3b burning speed

I have had a problem with k3b for some time.

Maybe try and isolate the problem by running cdrecord from a terminal, altho i cant see it making much difference, and trying different media, and if possible a different machine.

dont exclude problems with media and the burner itself.

a friend loaned me a Panasonic going bad in a similar way (around 4x speed max), told me it was the Cheapness / compatibility of the CD material.

installing a New CD/DVD burner in this machine, speeds roared up, on the same media, pointing at the old Recorder itself as the problem. Thing was only maybe a year old too

colnago

Member

From: Victoria, BC

Registered: 2004-03-25

Posts: 438

Re: k3b burning speed

Hi again,

Thanks for the suggestions.  I tried different media w/o luck.   I will see if I can burn an iso from the command line.  I don't have a lot of hope for that as I think k3b just uses cdrecord anyway.

I thought the entire reason for the extra wires in dma cables was to reduce crosstalk (the extra wires are just grounded)?  My CD drive is alone on the chanel.

colnago

Member

From: Victoria, BC

Registered: 2004-03-25

Posts: 438

Re: k3b burning speed

The burning problem has been solved.  Thanks for the replies.

It turns out I was using the default /tmp/... for my temp dir in k3b and I was using the default /tmp mapped to tmpfs (memory) in /etc/fstab since I upgraded to udev some time ago.  I switched to use /var/tmp/... in the k3b settings and all is fine.