SLOOOOOW CDRW read speed (under 2x)

Question

I am a more or less happy owner of my Inspiron 8200, with no problems for nearly 2 years.  I haven't used the forums before, because I've been able to solve any problems I've encountered.  Last year I reformatted my hd before New Years to 'start fresh' so I did the same this year.  Before the operation, I noticed my cd drive seemed 'slow' but no diagnostics found any problem. For kicks, I timed the back up of data (400mb took 425 seconds, or about 6.5x).  The max speed is 8x so I was happy that my drive was fine. After reformatting, reinstalling windows xp, basic upgrades, I put the 400mb back on the computer, assuming it would take under 3 minutes at 24x, but it took over 26 MINUTES!!  The 1566 seconds it took came to about 261.6KB/s, which is less than 2x! I can d/l from the internet at over 300KB/s, so the hd write speed is ruled out.  It must be the cd read speed, but so far, nothing I seem to do seems to help. Any New Year suggestions?

bacillus · Answer

is the drive using dma?

bobdbob · Answer

Thanks for your reply.  I assume it is using DMA.  Both channels say, 'DMA if available'.

bacillus · Answer

you need to read what's in the box below ie current transfer mode

Storage, Drives & Media

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