Plextor 40x12x40 is Slow as Shit
 

Why??? I have it sat on an ATA100 channel with master and udma enabled.

At 40x Using a 40x CD it still takes 10-12 minutes to burn a CD. By my calculations it should be capable of doing it around 2-3 minutes!!

I have an Athlon 1.4 on an Abit KG7 with 512MB PC2100 DDR RAM and a 120GB IBM 7200rpm

Any advice appreciated before i take this piece of shit back!! :)

random thoughts

is something else sharing the IDE? the IDE is only as fast as the slowest device on it

are you burning in disc at once? i believe it only hits 40x in TAO mode, but that may have been with older models only

how are you burning the cd? from hard drive? from cd-rom to cd-rom? more info needed, generally.

it is sharing the ide but with a nice fast dvd and both are at dma mode 5.

Usually it is in DAO mode but thats because TAO usually results in a coaster even with burn proof on!!!

I have tried all different types of burning but most the time it is burning iso's or bin/cue files ;)

ur nice fast dvd is probably still ata33, but that shouldnt be a problem. try turning dma off? check for info on this at club.cdfreaks.com - their forum is more hardware oriented than this one.

CD Rom and HDD speeds
 

If when it was installed the IDE cable is the wrong one, you will not get optimium speeds from you hardware no matter what you do.
When you boot up, look at the ATI speed(I believe it is called this) If it is 33 Mhz, well, that is the wrong one. If it is 100 or higher than it is the right one. It is easy to get them confused and not so easy to figure out.
Also, you can check the read/write speed with Nero or similar software. And if it is not giving what you should have for the hardware you have. I would check the IDE cable first. Good luck,
Keep'em burning...
Russ

:p