Cd-Burner

[inflames988]

Im looking to add a cd burner to this computer...it is running a pentium (no number here) processor and 64MB ram, but the burner i saw today said it needed EIDE (is that same as IDE?), 300mhz or better and 64mb ram...would it work? i know buffer underrun could be a problem with these slow speeds.

[Panama Red]

The E stands for Enhanced I think, and EIDE and IDE are the same. Your 64Mb will be marginal. Some of the ram is probably being used for onboard video too, so the entire 64 may not even be available. Assuming your processor meets the requirements, why not add more ram? You can find out how much you can add and buy direct from the manufacturer at www.crucial.com. Just use the Memory Configurator there.

[TwoRails]

Also make sure to see if your OS is supported! A lot of newer burners don't support early Windows.

[inflames988]

It SAID i needed 64mb ram, i have 32 as of now...having trouble getting the other 32 to work, i have only 3 running processes on the computer though...and it does support my o/s (Win 98)

[glc]

The burner will work, the issue is the software it's bundled with. Best thing to do is dig around for an old 2x or 4x burner and its old bundled software - Adaptec 3.x will run fine on that machine, for example. The odds of OLD software working with a NEW burner are very slim and even with a new burner I doubt you could get much faster than 4x without underruns anyway.

[inflames988]

Ok, well im getting a different burner with software that is win98 compatible, and will try to add the 32mb ram to total 64. Just wondering, the burner i am buying has a 2MB buffer, is that good or bad compared to most other burners?

[inflames988]

I did get the burner...installed it...but it said burning directly from the CD to the recordable cd is "dangerous" since my other CD drive (5 yrs+ old) is only 1x but i cant believe that it would be THAT low, anyway does anyone know where i could get a cheap, fast CD drive, 32x or above?

[TwoRails]

You should be able to copy / burn from the burner itself without the need for a seperate CD player. Many burners say this is the prefered method anyway. Which burner did you get? and what software did you install?

[Panama Red]

I used an old CD rom in a system I built for my son and added a new Liteon 52x burner. After experimenting, he's found it faster to download a music disc to his hard drive from the burner and then record it to the burner from the hdd files.