Really slow FLAC on EAC

2007-05-13 01:42:22

I used the instructions stickied in this forum. I'm very new to EAC and FLAC. I was trying my first CD out for archival purposes. For some reason on track 3 of this CD, speed slowed down to 0.0X and it's telling me the estimated time remaining is 2 hours. The CD is virtually scratch-free, and this is a new computer. The drive is Lite-On SH-16A7S, so it's just an ordinary DVD-RW drive, but I doubt it's supposed to go this slow. Can somebody help me find out what's wrong?

Really slow FLAC on EAC

Reply #1 – 2007-05-13 02:29:13

Newer Lite-Ons have a feature that when "reading" an audio cd, it sets the drive speed max to 2x (or so), this keeps the drive noise low, which is helpful when listening to CDs.

Unfortunately this affects EAC's Secure Mode, Burst Mode works great.  I've heard the setting in EAC, spin up drive to etc....4x works in fixing this, but I haven't tried this myself.  Test it out and let us know.

Also, it could be an ASPI problem, change the ASPI settings in EAC and test that out.

Really slow FLAC on EAC

Reply #2 – 2007-05-13 03:19:35

Some detailed instructions may help, as I see some options that refer to what you're talking about, but I'm not exactly sure if that's what you meant. Under Drive Options, "Spin up drive before extraction" is checked and in the "Offset/Speed" tab, I changed Speed selection from Actual to 4.0X. The results were the same.

Really slow FLAC on EAC

Reply #3 – 2007-05-14 06:34:38

This problem is really bugging me, as I'm hoping to get started on archiving my CD collection soon, now that I have some free time. Surprisingly, I can't find too much information through Internet searches, just random suggestions here and there which I'm not sure about.

I picked up somewhere that the caching function can inhibit speed and that I should disable it. Also, I read that running in Burst Mode with Test & Copy is good enough for error-free rips, but I'm not sure about any of this. Please comment.

One strange thing is that even in burst mode I only get speeds of 4X.

Edit: Never mind about the only getting 4X speed in burst mode. It's because I set it (per above post) at 4.0X. I set it back to Actual and it's going faster, right now only 8X but oh well, it's faster.

Really slow FLAC on EAC

Reply #4 – 2007-05-14 08:34:19

Secure mode rips are going along at a steady 3X right now. I'm not sure which changes fixed the problem. I set EAC to use the Nero ASPI layer per Coaster Factory instructions and probably some other changes, but it's working now. Whew, glad I got that one out of the way.

Really slow FLAC on EAC

Reply #5 – 2007-05-14 09:23:57

Must say that I've had similar problems on my old setup (XP Pro + SM-332B), and they were also solved by installing external ASPI layer. I believe that some drives don't handle the SPTI-commands properly (as my old drive) considering them somehow corrupted -> some features not working, such as speed selection. Nero's ASPI layer is always good choice (can't remember the dl link though). For those who are planning to use Adaptec's, I recommend highly using ForceASPI packages since somehow, the ASPI layer didn't install properly on my setup without it. BTW feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong, I'm not an expert in these problems.


Glad you got it working!