Philips 8631 Read/Write Speed Issue

Question

I have both a regular DVD-ROM drive and a Philips DVD+-RW DVD8631 burner installed in my Dimension 4700, and they were both working fine for the first 8 months or so.  Then, I noticed that my DVD-ROM started reading at 1x max (1.81 according to Nero CDSpeed).  Since my burner was still reading/writing correctly, I didn't worry about it too much.  But, after a couple of weeks, my burner dropped down to the same slow speed.  I found the firmware update on the Dell site (GD30.exe) and flashed the drive, and the speed went back to normal.  Then my computer crashed, and I had to reformat my hard-drive.  Afterwards, both DVD drives worked fine for about a week.  Then, my Philips burner dropped back down to the low read/write speeds.  I tried telephone support, and they couldn't come up with anything.  I re-flashed the drive, and it didn't fix it.  Any thoughts on what the problem could be?  I thought maybe a conflict, but wouldn't that cause one of the drives to not work at all?

Skybird · Answer

Check that the drive is in DMA Mode and not in PIO Mode here ............... http://www.the-predator.com/dell/detect.html#1-0-14

jeff1000 · Answer

Well, I found that it was set to PIO.  I changed it to DMA if available, but it still kept it as PIO for the transfer mode.  So, I manually went into the registry and deleted out the SlaveIdDataChecksum value, like that link told me to do, and rebooted.  Checked the speed, and sure enough, I'm back to the higher speed again.  Thanks for the help!

Skybird · Answer

Glad to hear the good news.  Best regards.

Storage, Drives & Media

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