IDE speed on CD-RW

Digitalis · 7th September 2002

I have a sony CRX 140E (UK), I have owned it for about a year and a half, never any issues with it, but I have never been able to "Back up" CD's on the fly at full speed without having buffer errors.

I have always put this down to the unit only having a 512Kb buffer, but I discovered recently that the writer's IDE speed is "Multiword 2" (something like ATA16).

The drive is capable of ATA33, and my mobo is ATA100 compatible.

I contacted Sony, and they said that a lot of hardware manuf's are experiencing problems with VIA chipsets, and that this is one problem that can occur. They also told me to download the latest drivers from VIA Technologies, and to check that the drive is Master on IDE2.

I dwled & installed the drivers, the drive was already Master on IDE2, although I checked it again-but still it runs at "Multiword 2".

I also tried other ATA33 IDE cables known to be in good condition, and still it doesn't perform as it should.

I have sent another e-mail to sony, but there is no reply, that was about a month ago, can anyone help?

Cheers.
Dig.

dale442 · 7th September 2002

I am not really sure about this but my Sony CRX1611 also only works at multiword 2 as well. This is a 16/10/40 drive. I did find this URL. I don't think it is the same drive but, notice it only runs at multiword 2 as well. Maybe that is all these can do??

http://www.storagebysony.com/product...ain.asp?id=54#

Click the specifications link from there.

Dale

Digitalis · 8th September 2002

Maybe you're right.

I checked that link, and as you say, it is Multiword 2, but I notice that it was a "CRX 140E/CH", I don't know what the "CH" means, but I do know that for the UK market, there was only one "CRX 140E" available, and the model number for this didn't have any "prefix" after it like "CH" or otherwise. I have that UK model, and I have checked the sony.co.uk website, and there is nothing by way of specifications for it.

Also I see that the "CRX 140E/CH" has a buffer size of 4Mb, this is eight times the size of the buffer inside my unit, that's quite a difference, I doubt that it is the only one.

During the time when I was trying to figure it out, I came across a site with the specs on,although it wasn't an official Sony site, it did say that the drive was capable of ATA33.

I also e-mailed Sony about it, and I would have thought they would have told me if it was only capable of Multiword 2.

But, then again, this wouldn't be the first time that the people here knew more than the manuf's support team.

Cheers for trying.

Dig.