Hello James, Thursday, December 02, 1999, 5:36:00 PM, you wrote: JLWJ> Just wanted to add my comments on this matter. I have JLWJ> a Acer 6206A 2x2x6 CD/RW Burner that run on a Cyrix JLWJ> MII-333 processor based home built system with 64 meg JLWJ> of memory. The drive itself only has a 512K buffer. I JLWJ> never shut down the goodies on my machine including JLWJ> InnoculateIT for virus protection; Webshots! for JLWJ> wallpaper management and screensaver; and have even JLWJ> played MP3's with WinAmp (I wouldn't suggest doing JLWJ> that). I have yet to make a single coaster. >> > > 8) When using an IDE burner, use alt-cnt-del to >> shut down everything >> > > non-essential to your computer and that includes >> anti-virus, sound >> > > cards,etc.. Failing to do this will inevitably >> produce a fine >> > > collection of coasters to keep your coffee cups >> on. You'll discover the >> > > pleasure of the buffer overrun GUI if you don't >> believe! >> > >> > This is true on slower systems, or pc's with >> issues to resolve. I think you both are right, to some extent. James uses a software that is very tailored for multitasking : the virus protection and the desktop require lots of resources only occasionally. WinAMP takes a little of cpu time and thus is transparent to the writer as well. The problem is not the sheer amount of software running. I believe that the writing can be done even with a lot of programs active and calculating their chores, but they must from time to time give a few clock pulses to the writing program to update the buffer. As the negative example, take a Netscape Navigator - it freezes itself and brings down the system while rendering some particularly intricate set of nested tables or arcane DHTML. This can be seen easily because WinAMP at this time starts skipping - like the CD, replaying the same part again because the decoder can't get enough CPU time. The same will happen with the writer, but the result will be a coaster. What is the conclusion? Try to run as little software as you can. A really good idea is not to touch the PC at all while it is writing. However, if your PC is fast enough and/or your software is 'multitaskable' enough -- you can always use the extra time, especially if you're going to write at 1x... +=-. | Max Timchenko [MaxVT] | [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] | FAX (413)431-4014 ICQ 2386792 | | Freelance website and graphics designer | Visit my site : http://maxwd.hypermart.net | | Editor - Graphics artist | NOSPIN group +=-. Curious about the people moderating your messages? Visit our staff web site: http://nospin.com/pc/staff.html