ibook combo drive

[SilvorX]

I've tried burning quite a few 80min audio cds with my 800Mhz iBook, and only once did it burn under 5 minutes, which was when i burned the cd with iTunes3, each other time i tried burning cds with Roxio Jam, and it took from about 8 minutes+
is this a common problem or what should i do? since most of the time its as slow as my 3 year old burner for my pc
thanx

 

[sparkleytone]

u arent going to get a full cd in 5 minutes. that just doesnt happen. thats the theoretically fastest time it could be burned. OS X and Toast both take time to fill the RAM cache and make sure that the cd is going to be burned properly. add in the time to write the table of contents and to finalize the disc and you are gonna be in the 7 minute range. it all really stopped mattering at 12x. I have a 24x, and its no faster really than your average 16x.

 

[SilvorX]

hmm itunes burned a full 80min cd in 4 min the other day....and it actually worked
when i burn a cd, it burns as if it were an 8x drive (after filling the cache) on toast
ive heard lots of complaints about the combo drive b4...

 

[alset]

I am curious if you are having a similar problem to one that I've been trying to solve. My iBook burns at a rate of two seconds for every second on the burn clock. Is this what you mean?

Dan

 

[mrjamin]

never got speeds less than 8 minutes doing a full cd on mine using a G3-800Mhz iBook, combo drive, 384mb ram.

One issue i have is that OSX keeps telling me that 700mb's are only 620mb, when my pc will let me get 720mbs on one!

 

[cubist]

What are you guys complaining about?

I have a usb burner on my mac, but on my PC I have a 32X burner, and it takes 15 minutes to burn an 80 minute CD using Nero. There's more going on there than just putting bytes on the disk, you know. Eight minutes is a GREAT speed, you should be gloating!

 

[G4scott]

Using USB for a CD burner is not the fastest way to get things done. USB is a serial connection, it's slow, and it shouldn't be used for heavy data transfer. Unfortunately, if USB is all that you've got, then you've got no other option.

I'm talking about USB1.1, BTW, since it's all that Apple puts on Macs.

I don't know about USB 2, but the only thing I'd use USB for are mice, keyboards, and joysticks. I'll stick with firewire for my high speed data transfer needs.

 

[maradong]

hm i dont understand why burning takes so long on a mac. my pc ( with a plextor 40 x ) writes a cd in about 3 minutes, without making an image....

 

[SilvorX]

Originally posted by maradong
hm i dont understand why burning takes so long on a mac. my pc ( with a plextor 40 x ) writes a cd in about 3 minutes, without making an image....

my 16x burner burnt a full 80 min cd in iTunes in 4 min, the problem is that i use vpc (kazaa) to download music and sometimes itunes wont add the mp3s to the playlist :S...
if only apple made iBurn or something for easier burning on osx

 

[NavyIntel007]

I got an external 12X burner for my G3 500 because the combo drives were so slow. I however wish that I had gotten the combo because I now value portability more.

 

[solvs]

Go to XLR8YourMac for more info. There are a lot of people having the same problems, and I think there was an unofficial fix that worked for some people.

Not all 8x, 16x, 24x, etc. will go to their highest rating all the time. Especially when you have 48x and 52x drives. Even if you have a fast machine, sometimes they slow down while burning (so you don't get a coaster, sometimes they have Buffer-UnderRun protection).

But it might be Toast. Or X. Have you updated your software to the newest version? Checked with Roxio or Apple about problems they might be having? That wasn't meant to sound rude, but if you haven't done that yet you might find a solution.

Try iTunes again, and if that works, you found your problem.

 

[gerror]

It also has to do with the type of cd's. A 12x burner burns only 12x if everything is running smooth. If it has some trouble, it automaticly switches to another speed