Author Topic: Need to get a CD burner (Read 12037 times)

Russ Kidd · « **Reply #45 on:** August 15, 2003, 05:46:55 PM »

Wow, Krissel, those links you gave me are excellent. That xlr8yourmac is a great site. Several other people earlier in the thread pointed me there too.

I did a lot of reading there and, funny thing, stuttering audio is a big problem with CDRWs when using an IDE PCI card. Mike Breen, who I gather is the founder of the site, reviewed one card in particular, the Promax TurboMax IDE PCI card, and said that audio stuttering will usually occur in pre-Beige G3 series machines. (Kelly, you were right about the card needing a Beige G3 to work.

) Even Promax itself recommends against using the card in older Macs because of the stuttering audio problem.

I did a search at the site for reviews of CDRW's in 9500s/9600s with the IDE PCI card interface and found 14. I read all of them and many reported stuttering, although one person had a stock 9600/350 with no upgraded processor and had no problems whatsoever, so it's not a 100% failure rate. Interestingly, even in the reviews where stuttering was not a problem, the reviewer usually said he/she was relieved to discover that stuttering did not occur. So it's apparently a well-known problem. Bottom line seems to be that using the IDE PCI card is risky.

I think maybe it will be best for me to do what you did, especially since you had such good luck.

I think you said you can't boot from your CDRW. Did you say there might be an issue of my machine not recognizing both CD drives (built-in CDR and external CDRW), or was that just in the context of the IDE PCI card? I.e., does your machine recognize both?

Question: Once I burn a CD of my own music, will I be able to put that CD in my CDR drive and burn another copy in the CDRW drive? That would be nice.

Kelly, as you can see, I think maybe going Krissel's route of the external Firewire may be best for me. Plus I can pester her about it when I have a problem.

kelly · « **Reply #46 on:** August 15, 2003, 07:45:00 PM »

"Question: Once I burn a CD of my own music, will I be able to put that CD in my CDR drive and burn another copy in the CDRW drive? That would be nice."

Sure.

krissel · « **Reply #47 on:** August 16, 2003, 02:27:02 AM »

My onboard CDR and external FW burner are both seen and can be used for reading most discs. The external isn't bootable since the FW loads after the system starts up as do all PCI externals. However I do have a problem with my stock CDRom with playing audio CDs. I'm not sure when the problem started or if it has anything to do with the FW burner. I usually don't use the computer to play music since the sound on the 9600's is really poor without additional speaker systems. Most of the time if I want to play music I use a separate CD player in the room.

For some reason the stock CD will not play music, that is there is no sound emitted. The CDPlayer works fine (as does SoundAPP) and I see the tracks counting off the seconds, Toast tests the CD drive and says sound is fine, and I have done every combination of pref tossing, PRAM zapping, settings in the Sound Control Panel, etc. but if I wanted to play music via the computer I have to use the external FW CDRW, oddly enough. When I insert an audio CD in the external I get a different icon (with a treble clef on it) and also the option of 3D stereo in the CDPlayer. This doesn't happen when put in the stock CDRom. I have no clue as to why the 9600's CD drive isn't playing music CDs whether commercial or homemade. I suppose there could be some connection to the upgrading I did last fall or possibly the Toast CD Reader which can conflict with the Apple CD reader. Nonetheless I can play through the FW CDRW with no problem.

Yes, you can just copy from the internal CD drive to the external burner. Despite not playing music I have no trouble copying music or data CDs from the internal to the external FW.

Russ Kidd · « **Reply #48 on:** August 16, 2003, 03:41:17 AM »

Kelly, I think it's a good sign that the last two questions I asked you, you answered, "You've got it Russ" and "Yes." I like those answers.

Krissel, how odd that you can't hear audio CDs in your CDRom drive.

QUOTE

When I insert an audio CD in the external I get a different icon (with a treble clef on it) and also the option of 3D stereo in the CDPlayer. This doesn't happen when put in the stock CDRom.

Just out of curiosity, I tried playing a CD in my CDRom just now and the icon I get is just a picture of a CD -- no treble clef like you get with your CDRW. And I don't get the 3D stereo option in the CDPlayer. Those must be unique to the newer standards for the CDRW or something.

I guess as long as you can play a CD in at least one of the two drives and it doesn't affect your ability to copy music or data CDs from CDRom to CDRW, it doesn't really matter. But that's odd. It's also the kind of thing that tends to drive me nuts. As I mentioned earlier, I get frustrated fairly easily and when something like that comes up, I start to go crazy trying to find out why. You may not be interested in exhaustively trying to solve it, but have you thought about posting the problem at xlr8yourmac.com?

kelly · « **Reply #49 on:** August 16, 2003, 07:12:18 AM »

krissel. Is your CD-ROM Internal Audio Cable hooked up?

https://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm...tem=OWCYAMCDCBL

Really thin wires. Small plastic Connectors on the ends.

krissel · « **Reply #50 on:** August 17, 2003, 12:24:58 AM »

kelly, it's possible something in there was unhooked when I did all my upgrading last fall/winter. I had a TurboTV card in there that had sound connections and I removed the ones going to the PCI card when I took it out but don't remember what else was done.
It's not that easy to just open up this thing and look as it requires major disassembly of a multitude of spaghetti cables and dragging the 35 lb thing out from under the desk, etc.
Will look next time I have a need to go inside.

If those connectors are not in place would I be able to hear sound from applications that run off a CD? I have some encyclopedia/history/education CDs with media that play sounds OK.

kelly · « **Reply #51 on:** August 17, 2003, 09:28:15 AM »

I think it would be all or nothing krissel.

Yeah. Just take a look the next time you're in there.

kelly · « **Reply #52 on:** August 29, 2003, 08:45:42 AM »

Hey Russ. If you want Cheap and Slow.

This would replace your CD-ROM. $30

Hewlett-Packard 6020i 6x Read / 2x Write CD-R Drive W/ 50 Pin SCSI-2. Mac Bootable! New

http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item.cfm...&Item=HPCC6020I

I got by at 2x for several years.

Russ Kidd · « **Reply #53 on:** August 31, 2003, 02:35:02 AM »

Kelly, sorry for the delay--I haven't checked my email for several days.

Thanks for the thought. That's a great price, but I think I want to go Krissel's route with the Firewire external unit. Plus I'd prefer to keep my existing CD-ROM so I can make copies from it to the CDRW. I'm just about ready to order the FW card and the unit.

() · « **Reply #54 on:** September 01, 2003, 01:11:55 AM »

if you have usb, you can get an IOMEGA external CDRW at a low price on eBAY.

There are a lot of CDRW's out there and my personal favorites iare the IOMEGA and QUE-QPS cdrw's drives. They works well with Roxio Toast and I have never had a problem with any of their products.

Epaminondas · « **Reply #55 on:** September 01, 2003, 01:43:14 AM »

Faster/better/cheaper:

Lite-On 52x32x52 Internal CD-RW Drive - $15 after rebates / free shipping

Russ Kidd,

If this won't work for you internally, you might consider putting it in an external firewire box.

Choice is good -

Epaminondas

Scott · « **Reply #56 on:** September 01, 2003, 01:10:31 PM »

I'd like to know why I can burn in OS9 at 12x without ever creating a coaster. It burn flawessly... but if I burn in OS10.2.6 at anything higher than 4x I'll positively get a coaster.

Russ Kidd · « **Reply #57 on:** September 01, 2003, 06:10:14 PM »

Tonye:

I checked Iomega's website and the only CDRW drives I saw there require newer machines than my 9600. I don't have USB, so I'll be getting a PCI card for either USB or Firewire depending on the drive I get.

I went to the QUE website, but the CDRW's I saw there didn't list the system requirements. Then I found one review of a QUE CDRW on a machine like mine and the person had some problems. Bottom line is I just don't know much about QUE.

Thanks for the input.

Epster:

Hope you had a good trip. The info I've read says that PCI IDE cards usually produce audio stuttering in pre-Beige G3 machines. In the xlr8yourmac database, I found 14 reviews of CDRW drives using IDE PCI cards on 9500/9600's, many of which had the stuttering problem. ProMax, maker of the TurboMax IDE PCI card, does not recommend using it on pre-Beige G3's. Unless I'm missing something here, I think I'd better avoid IDE PCI cards for a CDRW drive.

What's the "external firewire box" you mentioned?

Bill · « **Reply #58 on:** September 01, 2003, 07:41:22 PM »

Russ Kidd.
I've had no personal experience with the "QUE" models but a few friends have.
One in particular has gone through three bad ones. He finely gave up on *them* sending bad ones back and switched to a Yamaha external.
I've talked to him several times since and he never says anything about it.
So I guess all is A-OK.
Oh yeah. He does know his way around macs and then some.

krissel · « **Reply #59 on:** September 02, 2003, 12:13:42 AM »

Hi Russ,

See you are carefully going at this. Good idea.

Just want to recommend firewire over USB when it comes to CD burning. You are going to need the speed of FW to be sure you don't have any buffer problems. My Lite-ON 52x24x52 is in an external FW/USB case and it works great connected via the firewire cable. I have Toast Platinum which allows for the 52x burn speeds. I don't know if the Toast Lite that comes with many of the units has that speed ability. It might be worth checking with Roxio to find out. That may make up your mind as to whether to get an already put together unit with software for a bit more money or getting the parts, saving money and then investing in the Toast software. (BTW, the new Toast 6 is due out soon so don't get caught buying the older version without a free upgrade). And make sure when you buy blank CDs that they are rated for that speed. I actually have 48x rated blanks and they burn at that and 52 speeds. I always verify after burning, too.

Also want to remind you that internal installation will require you to move your second hard drive down to the bottom of the case to install the CDRW at a level where there is a bevel opening. You do not want to replace the SCSI CDdrive you now have with the FW unit. It will not be able to boot a system CD should you ever have to, and you will.

I was burning the other day a lot of data backups and it was wonderful to be able to do a full CD in two minutes or less. Actually it took some getting used to since I didn't have time to go off and make a cup of tea or do the laundry like before.

News:

Author Topic: Need to get a CD burner (Read 12037 times)