79 min track - 40 mins to rip

[jimzzzak]

Hi.

Is there anything I can do to avoid my entire system becoming unusable while I'm ripping very long tracks?

This morning I ripped a 79 min track to .flac and the CD-ripper took nearly 40 mins. During this time, I couldn't even type an email or web browse.

System:

dBpoweramp 13.1
Win XP Pro SP3
2 GB RAM
AMD 9950 quad core proc

It just doesn't seem like the whole system should become unresponsive and that the track should take so long to rip. I would like to multitask during the ripping process.

Thanks. Happy New Year.

[Spoon]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Doing a secure rip, or burst?

[jimzzzak]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Doing a secure rip, or burst?

It was during a secure rip.

Incidentally this behavior is not isolated to this one particular disc or song. I have seen it occur with regularity for very long tracks.

I'm sure you are aware of it, Mr. Spoon.

[bhoar]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

How much RAM does your computer have?

What else was running at the time?

-brendan

[jimzzzak]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

See my first message.

I have 2 GB RAM.

I had Firefox open at the same time.

[bhoar]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Did you keep the log of the rip?

If albums with lots of short tracks (< 10 minutes per track) don't give you the problem, then it is a RAM usage issue and can be addressed by adding more RAM. Especially if you don't have C2 enabled (perhaps your drive doesn't support it or doesn't support it well), in which case both Pass 1 and Pass 2 are stored in RAM:



If albums with lots of short tracks (< 10 minutes per track) do give you a similar problem, then it's probable the DMA -> PIO setting issue.

-brendan

PS - there's also a chance your drive lost accurate stream (unrelated to AccurateRip), so if you have the rip log, that might help show whether that occurred or not.

[jimzzzak]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Thanks for your detailed answer.

The behavior that I referred to in my original post occurs only with long tracks.

I had not previously checked the box for C2. I attempted to detect C2 support but the software indicated the disc was not scratched or that the drive didn't support it.

I then reripped the 79 min track. It took approx 12 minutes this time.

For the last 4 mins or so, the computer was again unusable.

Questions:

1. Does this mean the drive supports C2? It's a Lite-On iHAS220.

2. Does adding more RAM to this 32 bit OS help?

3. Does a 64-bit OS with lots of RAM eliminate this RAM-cram behavior of the CD-ripper with long tracks?

Thanks again.

[bhoar]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Under standard 32-bit Microsoft OS configurations, a process can use up to 2GB of RAM exclusively, beyond what the OS and other applications are using. So upping your ram configuration to 2.5 or 3GB will probably help you with this problem. Expanding in the 3GB to 4GB arena is always an iffy proposition, as most 32-bit OS hardware configurations will waste some or even most of that RAM.

I can't speak to the 64-bit OS issues, only spoon can.

As for your drive, find your most damaged CD and use that to test for C2 error flag support. If it fails to find them, then your drive doesn't do C2. If it does find them then your drive does do C2, but it may or may not support the feature well. In the short term, if it does detect them I'd enable it anyway just to get by with less RAM usage.

I have no experience with that drive, nor is it listed in the daefeatures.co.uk drive database.

-brendan

[jimzzzak]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Does the fact that the rip was shortened from 40 minutes to less than 15 minutes for that same 79 minute track indicate the drive supports C2?

[bhoar]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Does the fact that the rip was shortened from 40 minutes to less than 15 minutes for that same 79 minute track indicate the drive supports C2?

No.

-brendan

[jimzzzak]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

I found a disc that was problematic, and indeed, the dBpoweramp setting reported C2 error reporting.

I then placed the the original disc that sparked this thread, and noticed that the disc is being ripped at only 8-10x whereas the original (problematic) rip proceeded at 15-40x.

Is this to be expected?

Thanks.

Addendum: I just answered my own question. I'm ripping another long track and it's ripping at 30x with the C2 error reporting activated.

I think I will try to add another GB of RAM.

[bhoar]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Contemporary drives often throttle the disc speed if the disc isn't well balanced due to construction or even uneven ink on the label.

This is for safety reasons.

-brendan

[jimzzzak]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

Like all the threads that I created due to a problem, I have learned a lot thanks to the responders.

Today my rips are taking half the time that they did for the first 1000 or so rips because of the question I asked in this thread.

...and I have some RAM on order.

Happy New Year and thanks again.

[jimzzzak]

Re: 79 min track - 40 mins to rip

I just ripped another 79 minute track with C2 error reporting.

There was no detectable sluggishness of the OS throughout the process.

Hooray.