CD-RW problems since XP upgrade (not common) (1 Viewer)

[Todd Stout]

I posted this problem in another thread awhile ago but I'm still having problems so here is the latest:

Since upgrading my Dell Dimension 8100 PC to Windows XP Home Edition from Windows ME a few months ago, I have not been able to successfully burn audio CD-R discs. Every disc that I burn now skips in my car stereo, home stereo, and my aunt’s Windows 2000 PC. When the discs skip, they never seem to skip in the same place twice. One time I can put a disc in and it’ll play fine through the first 9 tracks and the next time it’ll skip during the first track. It appears as though the CD players are just having a hard time tracking or seeing these discs. Maybe they’re being burned slightly out of specification since the XP upgrade?

The method I use to create my audio CD compilations is as follows: extract songs from original CDs as uncompressed WAV files using Music Match Jukebox 7, open in Sound Forge 5 to edit/adjust sound levels, open WAV files in Nero Burning Rom 5.5 and burn to CD-R using disc at once (DAO) mode. The WAV files play just fine from the hard drive so the original data does not appear to be the problem.

The CD-RW dive that came with the PC was an LG Electronics CED-8080B and it worked flawlessly under Windows ME. As soon as I upgraded to XP Home Edition, my problems began.

I have taken several steps to rectify the situation. I was initially using Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum. I downloaded and installed the patch that is specifically designed to resolve XP compatibility issues and I also downloaded the upgrade from version 5 to 5.02d. (The 5.1 upgrade wasn't working on my PC for some reason).

I found a patch for XP by using the Windows Updater that addresses issues that some people are having with burning defective data and MP3 CD-R discs. That didn't change anything in my case.

After several recommendations, I purchased Nero Burning ROM 5.5 software. Although I like this software better than Easy CD Creator, it burns CD-R discs that are defective as well. After using both pieces of software with the same results, I must assume that the software itself is not to blame.

I called Dell customer assistance and was told that my problem appears to be software related. I was told to uninstall all software that I was not sure was 100% XP compatible and reinstall the Windows XP upgrade. The second time I intstalled XP, I reformatted the hard drive (using a Windows 98 start up disk and the fdisk and fdisk /mbr commands) and clean installed it. I only installed Nero Burning ROM and a few other pieces of software that are XP compatible (Office 2000, Music Match Jukebox 7, Sound Forge 5) and the problem persisted.

The second time I contacted Dell they decided to replace the drive. They came out and installed an LG Electronics CED-8120B drive. All of the discs that I have burned in that drive skip in the same manner as well.

I contacted the drive manufacturer and was given a few suggestions even though they don’t normally give tech support for OEM drives. I was told to set up the master/slave relationships for each drive (hard drive/zip drive primary master/slave and CD-RW/DVD-Rom secondary master/slave) instead of using the default cable select setting. I was also told to update the IDE drivers. I found newer drivers on the Intel Web site for my motherboard (it was called a hardware accelerator or something like that) and installed them. This caused the PC to reboot itself while burning CD-R discs, running Norton Antivirus, or running the Windows Updater. I rolled back the drivers to the Microsoft drivers and the rebooting problems disappeared.

I have now contacted Dell again and was told to uninstall XP and reinstall ME to verify that the OS is to blame. I’m understandably trying to avoid doing that.

Every CD-R disc that I burned while running Windows ME still play just fine in all three of the aforementioned audio CD players. Every CD-R disc that I have burned under Windows XP skips/jumps forward in the same three players. I am leaning towards the problem being with the divers that XP includes for this CD-RW drive or just an XP compatibility problem with the drive. However, Dell swears up and down that both of the LG Electronics drives that I have had in this PC are XP compatible. Could XP itself somehow be the culprit?

The PC:
Dell Dimension 8100
1.8ghz P4
Windows XP Home Edition (Dell OEM version)
256MB RAM
80GB hard drive
LG CED-8120B 12x CD-RW
Samsung DVD-ROM
Internal 250MB Zip drive

I am apparently not the only one experienceing this problem. I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who has a Dell Windows XP laptop with a CD-RW drive and that set up is also burning discs that skip. He is using the same method to burn discs that I am except he used track at once (TAO) mode. Could Dell OEM CD-RW drive firmware be the culprit?

Thank you,
Todd

 

[Max Leung]

A few guesses:
DMA should be enabled for all drives. Also, the IDE controller drivers may be out of date. If possible, identify the make and model of the motherboard, and attempt to find the latest drivers for it. For example, if the motherboard has the VIA chipset in it, then get the latest VIA-4-in-1 drivers (www.viatech.com). [EDIT: Oh you have intel].
DISABLE ALL ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE BEFORE BURNING OR RIPPING CDs. Antivirus software cause more problems than they cure. I've heard that Norton Antivirus does not work well with XP...if it were up to me, I'd uninstall that piece of junk.
Did you change brands of CDRs? Any difference in quality if you're using CDRWs? Could be the tolerances of these discs are not good.
I have an old Pentium 3 machine with a Plextor 8432, running windows XP. No problems. But then, I don't run antivirus software on it.
Good luck!

 

[Todd Stout]

Do I need to set anything in the bios to enable DMA? I seem to remember the tech at LG Electronics saying something about that but I don't remeber exactly what he said. Is there anything else in the bios that I need to check the settings for?

I have tried using four different brands of CD-R media (Memorex, TDK, PNY, and Maxell) and they all do the same thing.

I did try the newer Intel IDE drivers but that caused the PC to start rebooting itself during several different processes so I rolled it back to the default Microsoft drivers. I also downloaded the ASPI drivers and installed those but that didn't help either.

I'll try turning off Norton Antivirus and see if that helps.

 

[Greg Haynes]

Todd,

You can enable DMA through Device Manager. Check to ensure that the burner has DMA enabled. I first thought it was the media but since you have tried different media then it might be something else. First check to see if DMA is enabled and let us know.

 

[Max Leung]

To change/check DMA settings for drives, go to:

Control Panel->System->Hardware->Device Manager->IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers->Primary (or Secondary) IDE Channel->Advanced Settings

Check the DMA settings on each IDE Channel. DMA should be enabled on all your drives.

I am using default Microsoft drivers on my nForce-based motherboard, since nvidia does not have custom IDE drivers yet. It probably shouldn't be a cause for concern, as I know people with CD writers who don't have any trouble with that.

You get static/dropouts on audio CDs when you play them back on your PC right?

 

[Todd Stout]

Device 1 was set to "PIO only" on the primary IDE channel for some reason. I switched it to "DMA if available."

The PC seems to play both burned and store bought audio CDs just fine. The problem arises when I take a burned CD and try and play it in one of several different audio CD players. The players act as if they are having a hard time tracking these discs.

I'm not sure what is going on but I had absolutely no trouble burning CD-R discs while running Windows ME. This all started when I upgraded to XP.

 

[Dave F]

Todd- if it ever gets stuck on PIO, check out this page: http://216.239.39.100/search?q=cache...&hl=en&ie=UTF8 (It's a Google cache page, as the original is long gone....)
-Dave

 

[Max Leung]

Could be that the regular CD players just are not quite compatible with the CDRs you are using? See if you can find a friend who uses a different brand/model of CDs and try them.

I found that certain brands and models would not work very well, whereas others (like Princo blue CDRs) worked great, and would even sort of play in DVD players that would not accept CDRs.

If you have lots of time on your hands, you can find the EAC (Exact Audio Copy) program that is used to make bit-perfect rips of CDs, and see if it flags down any problems with your CDs (it takes advantage of error-correcting features of your CD-ROM, and will tell you if there are problems).

 

[Todd Stout]

The funny thing is, I have been using the same CD-R media the entire time I've had this PC. I was mainly using Memorex 80 minute CD-R's and had no problems while I was burning discs under Windows ME. All of those discs played and continue to play fine in my CD players. Using the same Memorex CD-R media (and a few other brands as well) under Windows XP, all of the discs I burn skip at one point or another. It doesn't appear to be the media that's at fault in this case.

I am wondering if there is something going on in Windows XP. Could Microsoft be attempting to add some sort of copy protection to discs that are burned while using XP and my CD players are overly sensitive to it? Could XP just not have a driver that works well with LG Electronics drives? Could the firmware in Dell OEM LG CD-RW drives just not be 100% compatible with XP? I am really at a loss for ideas at this point.

 

[Max Leung]

Yeah it's a puzzler. Are you burning your CDs "too fast"? Maybe try burning at 4X instead of the higher speeds. The faster you burn, the harder it is for a CD player to sync to it. Also, consider using Exact Audio Copy for all your ripping needs. It will at least guarantee error-free ripping of CDs.
You may also want to try using a trial version of CDRWin (the trial is limited to burning at 1X though). I've had zero problems with CDRWin, but Nero likes to burn coasters on my system. Go figure. :frowning:

 

[Todd Stout]

I usually burn my audio CD-R discs at 4x. I have tried a few lately at 8x and 12x but that doesn't seem to make any noticeable difference.

I just downloaded Exact Audio Copy last night. I'm going to figure out how it works and give it a shot. Looks like a pretty cool program.

 

[Todd Stout]

Max, if you happen to see this...

I downloaded Exact Audio Copy and I've been playing around with it over the past few days and I really like it so far. I haven't actually taken the time to figure out the drive offsets feature yet though.

Anyway, I ripped several tracks as WAVs from a few of my CDs and then used Nero 5.5 to burn a couple of CD-Rs (I haven't figured out the EAC burning interface yet). I then ripped two tracks from one of the CD-R discs and used the "Compare WAVs" tool.

The result for both comparisons was:

Error
1298 missing samples
0:00:00.013 longer

Position
0:00:00.000

Could that have anything to do with my CD-R discs skipping?

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

0.013 second is exactly one "frame" of CD audio (there are 75 frames per second).

I've read that Nero has a bug in that it loses one frame of audio from wav files. But we're talking about 1/75 of a second. If it's a continuous sequence of music (like a concert) then you might hear a little pop between songs. Other than that, the CD shouldn't have any technical errors that would cause it to skip.

Does anybody know if Ahead has fixed the bug yet?

 

[Todd Stout]

Thanks for the response Wayne.

I really wish I could fugure out what the heck is wrong. I have made a few CD-Rs since I started using EAC to to rip my WAV files and turning off Norton 2002 while burning. So far they seem to play okay but several other discs that I made started off playing okay and then ended up skipping as well. We'll see what happens.

 

[Max Leung]

I haven't figured out EAC's cd ripping features either. I use CDRWin and not Nero.
The faster you burn a CDR, the more likely a given CD player or CD-ROM will have problems playing it. You still have problems even when burning at 2x or *gasp* 1x?
There are a few portable CD players that have trouble playing CDRs. My friend has a new cheapo Emerson portable player, and it likes to skip on just about every CDR/CDRW ever burnt. Piece of junk! His wife's Sony portable plays them fine however.
There are just too many cheap players out there nowadays.

 

[Todd Stout]

I can't burn any slower than 4x for some reason. There are no slower speeds available. I have the option of 4x, 8x, and 12x on this drive.

I initially thought that there was a problem with the stereo in my truck which is just a POS stock Toyota radio (made by Fujitsu) in my 2001 Tacoma. I then played the discs in an old Fisher CD player and had the same skipping and then gave a disc to my aunt to test and she had the same problem in a Windows 2000 PC. I went back to the discs that I burned while running Windows ME and they still play fine. I just wish I could figure out what the difference between XP and ME is that is causing my problem.

 

[Max Leung]

Hmm, I think my LiteOn 32123 CD burner also cannot burn at anything less than 4x. At least, the trial copy of CDRWin I am using claims to only write at 1x, but a whole CD was written in 15 minutes anyways.

It's possible that the burner can only burn CDRs that are perfectly playable on the CD burner itself, but nothing else (or the occasional high-quality CD-ROM that happens to play almost anything).

 

[Todd Stout]

I just can't seem to figure out why the burner worked fine under ME but is not working fine under XP. Could this burner not be 100% XP compatible? Both Dell and the Microsoft XP Web site claim the original drive is compatible.

 

[Max Leung]

Definitely very strange. Your new CD burner is an LG, and I haven't heard any major problems with them (yet). Does the burner have buffer-underrun protection (aka Burnproof)? Maybe...just maybe...there were underruns when burning that skews the timing just a little bit to throw off the CD players.

Yeah, it's not very likely...but I'm thinking it could be some kind of timing issue that regular players can't normally correct, like very bad jitter.

 

[Todd Stout]

I did a little searching on the Web and discovered that the LG CED-8120B does not have buffer underrun protection. It instead offers an 8MB buffer.

I looked at the gap length on the CD-R that I burned last night and found that the first track had the usual 2.00 second gap. Most of the others showed 0.00 as the gap but a few were showing 0.01 and 0.02 gaps. Can that be affecting the CD players I am playing the discs in? I have already verified that this disc skips in my truck's CD player.

I'm not sure what you mean by timing. Can you explain that to me or maybe give me a Web link so I can read about that? Are there any good sites to read about the technical aspects (or any and all aspects) of CD-R burning, especially audio CD-Rs?

What about drive offsets? Would tinkering around with the settings in EAC and setting up the combined offset maybe help in my case? I still haven't figuered out the EAC burning interface though. I'm still using Nero 5.5 for now.

Would it help to create a disc image before burning? What are the advantages of burning from a disc image?

I'm still focused on the fact that the original LG CED-8080B drive functioned flawlewssly under Windows ME and started having problems immediately after upgrading to Windows XP. The 8120 is behaving exactly the same as the 8080 was telling me they are very similar drives.

Thank you very much for the suggestions... I appreciate it.