C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset)

[boneshaker335]

Hi,

I have 4 Plextor drives (755, Premium) in a Mapower firewire case, Chipset: Oxford 911. The ripper doesn't find any C2 errors when using a verified (= it produces c2 errors on other drives) very scratched test disc.

Is there a solution to for this problem?

Best wishes
Peter

[LtData]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

Using C2 over firewire is always dependendant on the bridge chip passing the C2 commands, so....

[pls1]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

I asked in the forum last month for a specific firewire chipset then would work for C2 detection and got no replies. I tried multiple firewire chipsets (including both Oxford options) and could not get any combo to give me C2 detection over firewire.

I gave up and I rebuilt my Plextor drive setup (Premiums, 230s, 755s and 760s) with esata or usb interfaces which give C2 support. You can search for my earlier C2 detection support thread for some other forum members suggestions.

Many other media programs can interfere with C2 support so on one machine I de-installed and in the other case I just did a clean install of XP. One quirk is that it seems that you must install Plextools on the machine to get C2 detection over USB with dbpoweramp.

I could be wrong but after all my hassle I did not want to do a full confirming test.

Phil

[bhoar]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

I could be wrong but after all my hassle I did not want to do a full confirming test.

Yeah, that's quite understandable. If you could, perhaps list the upper filter drivers and lower filter drivers associated with the optical drives on a working setup - might lead us to understand what change, if any, plextools make to get it working.

-brendan

[pls1]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

The PlexTools CD seems to install "PxHelp20" in Class Lower Filters. The Device Upper and lower filters are the standard "redbook" and "imapi". This is on a dedicated desktop where I wiped the disk and reinstalled XP and the dbpoweramp. I seem to recall that USB C2 detection at first did not work after the re-install of XP but then worked after installing PlexTools.

There is a similiar Class Lower Filters entry when installing the Plextor Blu-ray software "ULCDRHlp". This seems to be what enables C2 detection over USB for Plextor drives on my workstation after way to much messing around with uninstalling media software.

I could be wrong about the PlexTools software being necessary for C2 over USB but I am SURE that I'm getting consistent C2 detection over these drives over USB both with dbpoweramp and PlexTools since i test for this at the beginning and end of each days ripping.

Since it took me several weekend of work to build, rebuild, rebuild, etc. and finally get my present setup working (two dedicated desktop machines plus my workstation, each with four different models of drives) I'm not very inclined to mess with it. Music is my hobby and digital audio is not my business.

BTW, C2 can also be detected on a PX-755/760 using an Addonics IDE to SATA adapter and then plugged into an esata card or the internal SATA connector with a 2 meter cable. The XP Device Manager identifies them as SCSI devices. The PX-230 is flaky with the Addonics IDE to SATA adapter.

Hope this is helpful.

Phil

[boneshaker335]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

FYI:

C2 errors work over firewire when connecting the same external case to my MacBook.

It does not work when connecting that case to my PC (whether using a PCI firewire card or the onboard firewire interface).

So the computer side firewire interface seems to be responsible for the problems, not the Oxford chip in the external case.

[pls1]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

Almost all 1394a PC interfaces use the TI chipset so I suspected that it might be a problem. I alsu tried two different 1394b cards and didn't get C2 working on those either and they were two different cards from "other world computing" that were supposed to give full mac-like firewire commands.

Perhaps someone knows which chipset is in the Mac.

Phil

[bhoar]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

Almost all 1394a PC interfaces use the TI chipset so I suspected that it might be a problem. I alsu tried two different 1394b cards and didn't get C2 working on those either and they were two different cards from "other world computing" that were supposed to give full mac-like firewire commands.

Perhaps someone knows which chipset is in the Mac.

This also could be an issue with the microsoft firewire driver set. Remember the debacle with the XP/2003 1394b (800mbit) support?

EDIT: from what I've seen from online forums, some macbooks have TI chipsets, some have Agere chipsets.

-brendan

[pls1]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

One of the PCI firewire cards I used had an Agere chipset (model unknown). I've asked on forums for an example of C2 with Windows and haven't gotten a response so maybe it is the Microsoft drivers and firewire CANNOT give C2 detection on Windows.

The USB interface works fine for me and with a Gefen USB 2 optical extender I can put the dedicated ripping machines in a cabinet and the external drive enclosures with in easy reach of our office chairs.

Phil

[bhoar]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

One of the PCI firewire cards I used had an Agere chipset (model unknown). I've asked on forums for an example of C2 with Windows and haven't gotten a response so maybe it is the Microsoft drivers and firewire CANNOT give C2 detection on Windows.

The USB interface works fine for me and with a Gefen USB 2 optical extender I can put the dedicated ripping machines in a cabinet and the external drive enclosures with in easy reach of our office chairs.

Phil

Dang, the Gefen USB 2.0 optical extenders list at $1600 each. That's a very pricey t.., er, labor saving device!

-brendan

[pls1]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

Street price from the right reseller is significantly less than what it is on the Gefen website. Not even counting the parts, I blew WAY more $$ than that in my own lost client billable time screwing around with multiple failed firewire set-ups.

My wife's office workstation is just on the otherside of the wall from the server closet so esata from the machine to an outboard drive enclosure works fine with a 2 meter cable length.

However, I'm on the other side of the office and partially disabled by pinched nerves in my neck and spine so physical positioning of the drives is a big deal for me. The cheaper extenders were all USB 1.1

Also in terms of cost, multiply 5000 CDs by the average new selling price of the major labels, plus, I'm adding to my collection at about the same average rate over 20 plus years.

BTW what interface are you using for your multi-drive automated ripper builds?

Phil

[bhoar]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

Street price from the right reseller is significantly less than what it is on the Gefen website. Not even counting the parts, I blew WAY more $$ than that in my own lost client billable time screwing around with multiple failed firewire set-ups.
...
BTW what interface are you using for your multi-drive automated ripper builds?

I've been using firewire (on Mediatechnics fusion robots) with the Ripstation software, but I haven't gone down into the nitty gritty of tuning the C2 stuff on the drives yet for use with the dbpa batch ripper. The last time I started playing with it, I ran into issues with parallel ripping causing slowdowns in the batch ripper with more than 2 or 3 drives operating at once. Haven't figure if the problem is with dbpa or elsewhere.

Looks like I have some C2 fun to look forward to even after I resolve that. Luckily, I also have SATA<->IDE bridge boards available.

-brendan

[pls1]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

I don't use batch ripper (i use multiple instances of R12 on XP). From "black box" monitoring R12 on my overclocked quadcore workstation, I don't think R12 can make optimum use of an individual interface-to-PCI bus in terms of latency and throughput. Of course, just getting the low-level drive firmware to engage with dbpoweramp must be challenging enough so this is NOT a knock at Spoons.

Just casual observation but multiple cards, each with one drive, give the most consistent high speed (x18-24) on multiple simultaneous drives, while two drives on the same interface aren't consistent even though multiplication of expected through put is below the max of the spec.

For batch ripping I would really recommend the newer Intel CPUs over P4s. Casual observation also indicates the same leverage in performance that the typical video encoding benchmarks showed. The P4s are much less predicable in full CPU loading with multiple drives going. Also total L2 cache seems to make a difference although this seems to be a second order effect.

From my systems engineering experience "kill the problem with hardware" may not be elegant but is usually cheaper and easier from the "outside-in" unless the programmers have and show you secret dials somewhere. At $50-$75 per drive for adapters, interface and cable this seems like a no-brainer for a commercial operation.

Phil

[bhoar]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

From my systems engineering experience "kill the problem with hardware" may not be elegant but is usually cheaper and easier from the "outside-in" unless the programmers have and show you secret dials somewhere. At $50-$75 per drive for adapters, interface and cable this seems like a no-brainer for a commercial operation.

I was hoping the "throw as much hardware at it" approach would work, which is why I was surprised.

FWIW, the experiments I was talking about with more than 2 or 3 drives causing all drives to slow down was with each drive on a separate channel (tried all Firewire, then all USB, then all SATA) using the "Test" codec that throws the data away and doesn't write to the hard drive, on a core 2 quad CPU with 8GB of RAM on Win 2003 Server EE. The problem continued to exist if I mixed and matched interfaces (one on USB, two on SATA, one on firewire, for example). My gut feeling is that it is a DMA or interrupt issue of some sort in Windows. I'm going to try a few different windows installations to see if I can get the problem to go away.

Of course, now I'm going off topic, sorry.

-brendan

[pls1]

Re: C2 erorrs not detected when using Plextor drives via firewire (Oxford 911 chipset

Try to not use USB/Firewire at the same time as SATA. Then use only two drives per sata PCI card (or MOBO SATA interface). Better yet one interface per drive sending each ripping stream to a fast HD that is different from your systems disc using a quadcore processor.

My MOBO uses the nvidia chipset since there is an elusive bug in the intel chip that slows the fastest discs in RAID zero like configs. I can get four drives going with four separate R12 instances at X22+. Also make sure that the SATA card can handle the full 3 gbs. Many cards really don't.

This is only partially OT since I have lost C2 detection due to overloading the interfaces on my P4 machine.

I'll bet you will run into all sorts off hardware/interface quirks with multi-drive batch rippers.

I hope Spoons is not as touchy as the TOS enforcers over at HA.

Phil