Strange issue in burning to otical disc

Hi all,

I have a Z96Js, an older Core 2 Duo system that I really like. Over the last few months I have noticed that with Nero or other CD/DVD writing software it takes forever to complete. When looking at the cache or whatever you all it that it uses to keep a constant stream of data going to the burner, it is all over the place. It will start at 100%, drop to less than 10% and sometimes 0% in a few seconds then pop back up to 100%. I have also noted that the actual writing to the disc is only happening when the buffer (that what it is called!) is full, which muct be done by the underrun part but why is this write buffer jumping up and down?

I have defraged my hard drive, removed and readded the Teac optical drive and removed and reinstalled Nero. I do not have another internal burner to sub it to see if it is a hardware problem or something has bummed up in the OS. Is there any other way to check? I am running XP SP3. It reads ok for both games and DVD movies. It is just the writing that is choppy.

Thanks for any help! If I have to do a reload I am thinking of just getting Windows 7 Pro and put on it. I tried the RC and it worked nice.

Have a great day ya'll,

Jeff

PS one last question, Is there any fix for way to get 4gig of ram to work in it? I tried 2 2gig sticks and it would not boot up. I know that XP is 32bit so it will only read up to 3 gig with the boot switch but I want to run Win 7 Pro 64bit.

 

Hi Jeff - long time no see.

1. The cache will vary in terms of % full, as this depends on the outflow stream to the disc - down when streaming, up when cacheing while the cpu is otherwise occupied - so this is nl. You want to be sure to leave buffer underrun protection on, however, because if the buffer is empty then the burn will cease.

1a. How old are the discs you're using to burn? Old media can sometimes flake out and not work well.

2. Did you check the write speed that Nero is set at? Perhaps this got set to a low number (i.e. <4x) inadvertantly - be sure it's set to max/8/16 whatever the highest speed is.

3. How full is your HDD? Sometimes having low free space will impact things like cacheing etc.

4. 4GB RAM in the Z96-era requires a BIOS update that supports it, since 2GB sticks didn't even exist back when it came out. This lack of support is why you can't boot. You can look, but I doubt Asus released an update since the Z96 went EOL before 2GB RAM sticks ever hit retail. You're probably stuck with 2GB max (1x1), but maybe 2x1 might boot and give you 3GB.

4. Windows 7 might have driver issues with older machines like the Z96 which could render important parts of the system inoperable, and there might not be compatible ones at Asus for that model, but it sounds like the RC worked well for you (but was this the 32 or 64b version?) so this might not be a concern for you. I'd want to be sure and try a 64b RC or RTM version before you spend the money on retail, however, since Asus 64b support for old models can be spotty.