Problem with Pioneer 110 Burn Failures - Response from SVP

[weirdo109]

I've had a pioneer 110 from SVP for about two months and have had quite a few discs fail so I contacted SVP whom inturn asked me alot of questions about how my pc was set up and ow I was burning, To which I replied satifatory to all.

They then replied to one part of what I had written and blamed that. Can anyone confirm if this is the case

QOUTE from SVP

Everything looks correct in you setup apart from Ultra DMA 2 setup as the Pioneer unit need to run on Ultra DMA 4. Please check you IDE cable and upgrade it and also check you have the latest IDE controller drivers installed.

I have an MSI K7N2 Delta motherboard and I can't find anything to download in order to get it to Ultra DMA 4.

Any help would b egreatly appreciated.

[Malkie]

cant really help much but Pioneers own site says it can run under DMA 2

[weirdo109]

Thanks malkie can you give me a link to where it says it so I can quote it

[movaado]

What speed are you burning the disks at? To get full 16x speed the 110 specs I found says you need ultra dma 4 (which requires an 80 way ide cable)

Doubt its what they say though....

[pjclark1]

Failed burns on a PC are almost exclusively caused by one of two things

1) unsuitable firmware on the writer (for the media you are using)
2) faulty media

SVP know this only too well, and I am quite frankly surprised that a firm with their good reputation are giving you this sort of runaround.
Speed of burn, buffer underrun and DMA problems no longer cause burn failures on modern burners, as the burners can pause and restart the burns without failing the dvd.

LMN what brand name media you are using, and it's media ID code
(e.g. Datawrite Blue Ritek G05, Datawrite Titanium CMC MAG M01, Verbatim Data life MCC 003)

[nwgarratt]

As long as you use a IDE cable on the Pioneer that does up to DMA 5 (ATA 100). It should go to DMA 4 automatically. That is what my Pioneer 109 does.

[weirdo109]

Datawrite Titanium grey tops are the media.
Cable is the standard 40 line.

Below is the original email and my responses

Hi Adam

Thanks for the email and please read below for my answers to your questions.

1. DVD-CD_firmware_detect.exe informs me that the drive is running Firmware version 1.37 which I updated from your site when I got the unit.

2. Software is Nero 7 Ultra Edition

3. Data Transfer mode is set to DMA if available and the Ultra DMA 2 is selected. Drive is not set to Cable Select.

4. Media that I use is only from you and is Datawrite Titanium. I have been using these when I had the NEC drive that I got from you prior to the
Pioneer drive and with very little problems.

5. Drive is set to Region 2

6. Drive is found and installed in the device manager as a PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-110

7. Reads discs OK

8. I have attached what I believe to be the right log file for Nero

My system is as follows

AMD Athlon Processor
640mb RAM
At least 5gb of free HD space on Temp drive
XP with Service Pack 2

Hopefully that answers your questions.

Regards

Ricky Seymour



Adam C at SVP wrote:
>
> Problem with Pioneer DVD burner
>
> Hi,
>
> Thank you for your e-mail.
>
> Please run through a few things before we arrange to get the drive back for testing. You can work through the list below or use our troubleshooter at www.svp.co.uk/helpdesk
>
> Regards,
>
> Adam.
>
> 1. Ensure that you are running an up-to-date firmware revision. This can be obtained from the manufacturer's website or you can check the downloads section at www.svp.co.uk/helpdesk - you need to be running the latest version available. You can also use are firmware detection tool if you need help. Please reply with what firmware you have running for us to help you more.
>
> 2. Ensure that the software that you are running is the most up-to-date version. Downloading an update from the manufacturer's website will often solve a lot of problems (even when the update appears to be an older version than the one you are running). Also please reply with what software you have and the version.
>
> 3. If you are having speed problems when writing media, please ensure that your data transfer mode is set to DMA mode and not PIO mode. Access Device Manager by right-clicking My Computer in Windows (look under the Hardware tab under Windows XP). In Device Manager, double click ATAPI/IDE Controllers and double click 'Primary IDE Channel' or 'Secondary IDE Channel' according to the connection of your DVD writer. If the transfer mode is set to PIO, change to DMA. Make sure your 80 way IDE cable is correctly oriented and you are not using cable select READ HERE.
>
> 4. Please test the unit with a high quality DVD media disc - Tayio Yuden dye media and Verbatim media perform consistently well. If you find that cheaper media doesn't work, but the Tayio Yuden or Verbatim does, you probably have a media compatibility issue and not a hardware issue.
>
> 5. Please check that you have the region setting for the drive set to region 2 (Europe). You have to set a region before using the drive with some discs or for some purposes.
>
> 6. If the drive isn't found, the computer won't boot or other drives have stopped functioning, please ensure that your Master/Slave jumper setting (plastic pin linker on the rear of the unit) is in the appropriate position (normally set to master connected on the secondary IDE channel).
>
> 7. If your unit is not reading discs at all or ejects unexpectedly, please ensure that nothing is jammed in the drive. We have had instances of protective disk packaging, notably clear coasters and foam rings, stuck within the drive. If this is not the case, refer to 1.
>
> If you use Nero please forward the log file after a failed burn.
>
> Please reply for clarification if you suspect you may have any of these problems but do not understand how to sort the situation.
>

[visitor-q]

I have had the same burner for about a month now. When I first installed it all sorts of weird things went on and it frequently crashed the computer. Finally found out from the pioneer forums that you shouldn't use a 40 wire IDE cable. Since upgrading to an 80 wire I haven't had any problems at all.

[Anthony.S]

Cable is the standard 40 line.

That is almost a certainty what is the cause of your problem. :oh-hum:

[Chris Locke]

A cable will cost approx £2 from eBuyer (ok, admittedly excl. shipping)
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=16717326088&action=&product_uid=88068

[Xenole]

I haven't had a single burn failure for a while now. Do believe it was the batch of Verbatim media I was using as nothing else has changed (4x burn most of the time anyway)

[weirdo109]

Got an 80 line cable from work yesterday. Fitted and burn't a disc and guess what.
It failed.

[Chris Locke]

Does it still say its DMA 2?

[Anthony.S]

First get the basics right.
Make sure it is not installed on the same channel as your HD.
If possible set your HD(s) on primary and your writer on secondary, as master if poss.
What speed are you burning at? I find there is little difference between 8x and 16x as it is only an outer section of the disc that is written at the higher rate. This also causes a line on the disk on my 108D where it changes over from CAV to CLV.
I see that firmware 1.39 is available. Have you considered updaing again?
You should check out specialist forums for media compatibility but in the meantime invest in some quality media (verbatim, TY) and try burning at various speeds until you find the most suitable for your system.

[pjclark1]

Try some different dvdr
Datawrite Titanium grey tops are very good if they are CMC MAG M01 but can be very poor if they have a different media ID. Datawrite chop and change their manufacturers and they merely add their brand to whatever media they can buy at a good price. Sometimes it's good, sometimes not.

[topboy]

the last lot of those datawrites that i had were terrible, used to use them all of the time, but never again

[Uncle Nick]

On the basis that a new writer only costs £30, why not lob the 110 into the bin and get something else? It'll be worth it considering the amount of your life that's being wasted here...

[nwgarratt]

It's not worth the amount of time. I just got a LG 4167B for £27 from amazon (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/redirect-home?tag=thedvdforums-21&site=dvd) and it is fantastic. It uses DMA 2.