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Burning DVDs = High CPU usage


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I have similar problem. But it began very soon. My laptop is VAIO VGN-A250 - pretty powerful for DVD burning. And normally when burn DVDs I can do lots of other stuff without any delay.

But from some time, one week or 2 when start the burning process buffer quickly jumps from 5-98% and CPU loads at 80-100%. And it's not Nero, but hardware interrupts which eat all the power (checked with Process Explorer - Sysinternals). The result is such a laggy machine that I can't do anything other for a hour and a half.

I think (not absolutely sure) that his hell began when I installed last firmware from SONY. Now I can't roll it back or install again the older one.

Friend told me that he had similar problem and OS reinstall corrected it, but I thing there must be more clever solution.

Ideas?

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will all of you look at his cpu! and a 5400 rmp hdd doesnt help much either. with that computer it is completely normal for a high cpu usage. one of my comps with and amd althlon mobile 1600 has a cpu usage of over 80% when burning cds

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will all of you look at his cpu! and a 5400 rmp hdd doesnt help much either. with that computer it is completely normal for a high cpu usage. one of my comps with and amd althlon mobile 1600 has a cpu usage of over 80% when burning cds

Actually... I figured out that the problem was my motherboard and the fact that the hard drive in question was on its way out. My old mobo couldn't handle the data transfer between the devices. When I was burning CDs, I wouldn't have any troubles whatsoever, and my CPU usage was at ~10% tops.

ok, i have a 160GB Western Digital harddrive and i still get high CPU usages when i burn DVDs.

Do you get high CPU usage if you burn CDs or transfer large amounts of files to/from the hard drive? Check in Device Manager under the IDE controllers if any of the devices are running in PIO Mode.

I wouldn't say that the high CPU usage is "normal" anymore, especially not with a 2.66GHz CPU, since with my new motherboard when I burn DVDs at 4x, CPU usage usually stays at about 5-10% and I can go about doing everything else as normal.

@feronimo - I would suggest the same as what I said to hakeem5454. Check to see if the firmware was a bad upgrade and the device is running in PIO mode.

@ripken204 - It doesn't take that much processing power to transfer data from the hard drive to a disc... ;) I've burned DVDs on a PIII 650 before without any problems...

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I wouldn't say that the high CPU usage is "normal" anymore...

Of course I couldn't agree more with that, but I didn't have time to argue here. Coz just 2-3 weeks before my laptop (1.6 centrino, 512 RAM), never used more than 10% CPU during burn and I could do whatever I want incl. games.

No, it's not in PIO mode. Searched Sony support and didn't found any traces about bad upgrade.

Probably during this upgrade something went wrong and if I reinstall OS it'll probably set right. But I want to know what exactly is it to get away reinstalling.

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I'm not sure if reinstalling will make things better, since the problem happened after you upgraded the firmware, not any software (firmware is the code that controls the onboard circuitry - nothing to do with the OS).

Can you "upgrade" the firmware again? Or perhaps downgrade? I've heard of rare cases where new firmware doesn't work properly on all models. IMO, if the drivers/firmware/BIOS that you have work, use them.

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  • 1 month later...

I have a P4 2.4 Ghz Machine with CD burner and DVD Burner. I used to be able to use both burners simitaniuosly and only use 5-10% cpu. In the last few days this cpu has gone to 90-100% when burning to DVD, or even when erasing a DVD+RW. All the extra cpu usage seems to come from the interupts. If I boot this system from the other harddrive there are no interupt problems and cpu is normal(~5%). What is causing the interupt to use this cpu?

Billmann

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What do yo u mean when you say interrupts Billman? Do you remember specifically any drivers or firmware that you may have modded before this CPU hogging started? I burn CDs and DVDs on my laptop XPS and the fans dont even spool up indicating almost a negligible amount of CPU usage.

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When using Taskmanager, it will show that it (taskman) is using 98% cpu. I have downloaded Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com and it shows that most of the cpu is being used for interupts. Note that prior to this the DVD burn light would only be red until the end of burning or erasing. Now it alternates switching from red to orange. It appears the that the DVD recorder was switched to PIO mode I have gone back to DMA mode . however it is still using PIO mode as the current mode.

Billmann

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well, i was having (exactly) the same issue.

download process explorer and check if the higher cpu use is because of hardware interrupts. mine was, i went to device manager and drive was (automatically) in PIO mode because of errors.

after replacing ide cables everything worked flawlessly :)

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I defrag my drive fairly often... probably once every 3-4 days, but thanks for the input.

fair enough, but it still is a rubbish drive (no offence intended), that'll be holding your whole system back a lot to be honest

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