LG dvd-/+rw only burn's at half speed

tomj88 · 09-04-2005, 02:02 PM

I just purchased the LG GSA4163b dvd burner, and it will only allow me to burn at 8.20x speed, yet it is capable of 16x speed burning. I looked in k3b in the device section of preferences, but it would only allow me to change the speed of cd writing (which was correct). When I go to burn a dvd it only allows me to choose auto, 4 or 8 for the speed. Is their anyway to change this so it runs at 16x speed? If you need any more information, just ask and I will see what I can do... Thanks in advance.
Tom

HappyTux · 09-04-2005, 02:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tomj88
I just purchased the LG GSA4163b dvd burner, and it will only allow me to burn at 8.20x speed, yet it is capable of 16x speed burning. I looked in k3b in the device section of preferences, but it would only allow me to change the speed of cd writing (which was correct). When I go to burn a dvd it only allows me to choose auto, 4 or 8 for the speed. Is their anyway to change this so it runs at 16x speed? If you need any more information, just ask and I will see what I can do... Thanks in advance.
Tom

Hi do you have DMA activated on the burner, install the program hdparm then use hdparm /dev/hd? replace the ? with the drive letter your burner is. An example from my install.

Code:

HappyTux:~# hdparm /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:
 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 HDIO_GETGEO failed: Invalid argument

With the -i in there it will tell you the mode the drive is using.

Code:

HappyTux:~# hdparm -i /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:

 Model=BENQ DVD DD DW1640, FwRev=BSLB, SerialNo=9JB5U150C352407627SP
 Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
 RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
 (maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
 IORDY=yes, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2
 AdvancedPM=no

 * signifies the current active mode

Another thing are you actually using 16x capable media?

tomj88 · 09-04-2005, 02:38 PM

My output appears to be almost identical to yours, and I can't believe how stupid I was not to notice the great big 8x on the cd's

oh well, not too much of a problem really. Thanks for your help

leibniz · 09-12-2005, 06:24 PM

Further to this thread of the Benq DW1640 DVD RW DL drive, my Debian SID AMD64 bit system does not seem to recognize the full capabilities of the device:

Code:

amd64-2:~# dmesg | grep ^hdb
hdb: BENQ DVD DD DW1640, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdb: DMA disabled
hdb: ATAPI reset complete
hdb: ATAPI 94X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache

Not sure why it's disabling DMA either. hdparm reveals good info:

Code:

/dev/hdb:

 Model=BENQ DVD DD DW1640, FwRev=BSHB, SerialNo=9J...
 Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic }
 RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0
 (maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0
 IORDY=yes, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2
 AdvancedPM=no

 * signifies the current active mode

Anyone have this experience with linux? preferably Debian, and/or a 2.6.12 kernel?

I realize there is a firmware upgrade for the device, and I have it downloaded but not applied. Anyone know if that will fix the problem?

Thanks.

HappyTux · 09-12-2005, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by leibniz
Further to this thread of the Benq DW1640 DVD RW DL drive, my Debian SID AMD64 bit system does not seem to recognize the full capabilities of the device:

Code:

amd64-2:~# dmesg | grep ^hdb hdb: BENQ DVD DD DW1640, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive hdb: DMA disabled hdb: ATAPI reset complete hdb: ATAPI 94X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache

Not sure why it's disabling DMA either. hdparm reveals good info:

Code:

/dev/hdb: Model=BENQ DVD DD DW1640, FwRev=BSHB, SerialNo=9J... Config={ Fixed Removeable DTR<=5Mbs DTR>10Mbs nonMagnetic } RawCHS=0/0/0, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0 (maybe): CurCHS=0/0/0, CurSects=0, LBA=yes, LBAsects=0 IORDY=yes, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120} PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 AdvancedPM=no * signifies the current active mode

Anyone have this experience with linux? preferably Debian, and/or a 2.6.12 kernel?

I realize there is a firmware upgrade for the device, and I have it downloaded but not applied. Anyone know if that will fix the problem?

Thanks.

Hi I have the latest firmware installed I did it before I even installed it in my computer using my nephews Windows machine. Make sure that the DMA is enabled on your drive with hdparm /dev/hdb and see if it looks like this.

Code:

HappyTux:/home/stephen# hdparm /dev/hdd

/dev/hdd:
 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    = 256 (on)
 HDIO_GETGEO failed: Invalid argument

Now in order for it to work for me I had to edit the file /etc/hdparm.conf and put this in there.

Code:

/dev/hdd {
        dma = on
}

Otherwise the DMA would not be enabled on boot and I would have to use hdparm -d1 /dev/hdd without it the disks I burned were coasters and I was getting strange errors from K3b. Oh and I am using kernel 2.6.12.5 on Debian AMD64 was Sarge w/KDE 3.4.1 from Alioth but just dist-upgraded to SID about an hour ago and have not tried to burn a dvd yet but I see no reason for it not to work now this is what I get when I do the dmesg.

Code:

HappyTux:/home/stephen# dmesg | grep ^hdd
hdd: BENQ DVD DD DW1640, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
hdd: ATAPI 48X DVD-ROM DVD-R CD-R/RW drive, 2048kB Cache

leibniz · 09-12-2005, 07:42 PM

Thanks for the reply. My system is inconsistent so I'm trying to track that down now. I'm getting alot of dma_intr errors on /dev/hdc, which is the partition with the source iso which I am trying to burn. That seems like a candidate for issue.

On that piece I coded, dma for that device (hdb - the Benq DVD RW) was obviously disabled. So I enabled it. I tried different media as well. After that, I rebooted, and the hdb lines in dmesg came up exactly like yours - clean. And yes, dma was enabled for that device.

Of the media I tried:
Memorex CD-R appeared to work
Mitsumi DVD+RW didn't work, and seemed to alter the drive *
Memorex DVD-R didn't work
Memorex DVD-RW didn't work either.

* by alter the drive, I mean that "Suppored modes:" showed several modes, including TAO, etc.

However, not any more. Now it just seems to only support PACKET and SAO modes.
amd64-2:/home# dvdrecord -dev=ATAPI:0,1,0 -checkdrive
dvdrtools v0.1.5
Portions (c) 2002-2003 Ark Linux <bero@arklinux.org>
dvdrtools patched by Julien Delange for Debian
Note that you have to reports bug to the debian maintainer
Please ask Debian for support, and not ask the original author
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
Based on:
Cdrecord 1.11a15 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 JÃ¶rg Schilling
scsidev: 'ATAPI:0,1,0'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: 0 target: 1 lun: 0
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related libscg interface code is in pre alpha.
Warning: There may be fatal problems.
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 3
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'BENQ '
Identifikation : 'DVD DD DW1640 '
Revision : 'BSHB'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc DVD-R(W) driver (mmc_mdvd).
Driver flags : SWABAUDIO BURNFREE
Supported modes: PACKET SAO

If I restart, it seems to return to before. Perhaps I should just apply the latest Benq firmware and see if that fixes the problem. I don't like grasping like that, but it's probably a good route to take regardless of my other problems.

I would be interested in the media you use, if you are burning in SCSI emulation mode (i.e. loading kernel with /dev/hdd=ide-scsi ) or ATAPI mode, and if you are using the dvdrecord (and mkisofs) utilities.

That's what I'm using, and I believe I have the latest versions. I'm going to try installing dvd+rw-tools (growisofs) and see if that makes any difference...

Thanks.

HappyTux · 09-12-2005, 11:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by leibniz
Thanks for the reply. My system is inconsistent so I'm trying to track that down now. I'm getting alot of dma_intr errors on /dev/hdc, which is the partition with the source iso which I am trying to burn. That seems like a candidate for issue.

I am just cluing to this here you have the burner and a hard drive on the same bus right? Then you have another hard drive on the hdc is there another cdrom/burner there? This is not a good idea to be doing you may want to consider putting just burners/cdroms on the second bus and the hard drives on the first bus, I have run into problems doing that in the past plus the bus will only want to operate at the slowest device on it that being the cdrom/burner/dvd.

Quote:

On that piece I coded, dma for that device (hdb - the Benq DVD RW) was obviously disabled. So I enabled it. I tried different media as well. After that, I rebooted, and the hdb lines in dmesg came up exactly like yours - clean. And yes, dma was enabled for that device.

Of the media I tried:
Memorex CD-R appeared to work
Mitsumi DVD+RW didn't work, and seemed to alter the drive *
Memorex DVD-R didn't work
Memorex DVD-RW didn't work either.

* by alter the drive, I mean that "Suppored modes:" showed several modes, including TAO, etc.

Good the DMA is getting enabled and I would think that the extra modes would be the result of the +RW disk being in there.

Quote:

However, not any more. Now it just seems to only support PACKET and SAO modes.
amd64-2:/home# dvdrecord -dev=ATAPI:0,1,0 -checkdrive
dvdrtools v0.1.5
Cdrecord 1.11a15 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 JÃ¶rg Schilling
scsidev: 'ATAPI:0,1,0'
devname: 'ATAPI'
scsibus: 0 target: 1 lun: 0
Warning: Using ATA Packet interface.
Warning: The related libscg interface code is in pre alpha.
Warning: There may be fatal problems.
Using libscg version 'schily-0.7'
Device type : Removable CD-ROM
Version : 0
Response Format: 3
Capabilities :
Vendor_info : 'BENQ '
Identifikation : 'DVD DD DW1640 '
Revision : 'BSHB'
Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD.
Using generic SCSI-3/mmc DVD-R(W) driver (mmc_mdvd).
Driver flags : SWABAUDIO BURNFREE
Supported modes: PACKET SAO

I get the same as you.

Code:

HappyTux:/home/stephen# dvdrecord -dev=ATAPI:0,1,0 -checkdrive dvdrtools v0.1.5 Portions (c) 2002-2003 Ark Linux <bero@arklinux.org> dvdrtools patched by Julien Delange for Debian Note that you have to reports bug to the debian maintainer Please ask Debian for support, and not ask the original author This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. Based on: Cdrecord 1.11a15 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2001 Jörg Schilling scsidev: 'ATAPI:0,1,0' devname: 'ATAPI' scsibus: 0 target: 1 lun: 0 Warning: Using ATA Packet interface. Warning: The related libscg interface code is in pre alpha. Warning: There may be fatal problems. Using libscg version 'schily-0.7' Device type : Removable CD-ROM Version : 0 Response Format: 3 Capabilities : Vendor_info : 'BENQ ' Identifikation : 'DVD DD DW1640 ' Revision : 'BSLB' Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD. Using generic SCSI-3/mmc DVD-R(W) driver (mmc_mdvd). Driver flags : SWABAUDIO BURNFREE Supported modes: PACKET SAO

But with a CD-R in there this is on the bottom.

Code:

Identifikation : 'DVD DD DW1640 ' Revision : 'BSLB' Device seems to be: Generic mmc2 DVD. Using generic SCSI-3/mmc CD-R driver (mmc_cdr). Driver flags : SWABAUDIO BURNFREE Supported modes: TAO PACKET SAO SAO/R96R RAW/R16 RAW/R96R

Quote:

If I restart, it seems to return to before. Perhaps I should just apply the latest Benq firmware and see if that fixes the problem. I don't like grasping like that, but it's probably a good route to take regardless of my other problems.

I would be interested in the media you use, if you are burning in SCSI emulation mode (i.e. loading kernel with /dev/hdd=ide-scsi ) or ATAPI mode, and if you are using the dvdrecord (and mkisofs) utilities.

That's what I'm using, and I believe I have the latest versions. I'm going to try installing dvd+rw-tools (growisofs) and see if that makes any difference...

Thanks.

I applied the latest firmware before I even put it in this computer it was really the only way to do it I have no windows install and I seem to recall that there was something about the changes adding more support for different media. I use Sony DVD-R 8X media and aside form the problems with the DMA off the start it burns at pretty much 8X without problems. I only use K3b for my burning it uses the growisofs if I recall correctly the screen when it starts the burn so no command line use here also only use the /dev/hdd no ide-scsi since it was first supported in the kernel 2.6.?.

leibniz · 09-13-2005, 12:20 AM

Got it!

I also thought about changing the devices so that both hard drives would be on 1 IDE channel, while both DVD drives (1 reader, 1 writer) would be on the other channel. However, I believe I have found and fixed it without doing that.

I had an old style IDE ribbon and so I substituted it for a more recent one (where each wire has a ground) and my seek errors went away.

Then I removed the hdb=ide-scsi from the kernel start up parameters, and now I successfully ATAPI formatted and saved an iso filesystem which I created with mkisofs.

I used the dvd+rw-tools package, with the dvdrtools package too.

basically - inserted the disk, ran dvd+rw-format, and then growisofs to add the data.

It seemed to work ok on a Memorex DVD-RW.

So, progress. Should be good. All this from the command line. I think this not having to use scsi emulation to burn data is a very good thing. Seemed to take a long long time, but I'm glad it's here.

Now onto burning all sorts of different data. audio etc.

I realize and believe that K3b is a real cool and ideal tool for burning, but I'd like to stay command line only, if possible. Less processes, less opportunity for errors.

Thanks for the help!
Bill