Feurio Questions & Answers - Feurio! CD-Writer
general questions:
Why shouldn't I use an ISA SCSI card?
Question: I still have an old ISA
SCSI card. According to the specification this card handles 10 MB / second -
this is enough for CD burning. Why does Feurio! "complain" about this card anyway?
Answer:
The 10 MB / second is the transfer rate attained by the adapter
on the SCSI-BUS - unfortunately ISA cards in PCI systems do NOT attain this performance
on the ISA bus and are therefore "braked out".
In a PCI system the ISA bus gets nowhere near its theoretical possible performance.
In a PCI system the ISA bus is only approached via a "Bridge". Depending on the
system the ISA-BUS only attains a maximum of 1-3 MB / second. Although this would
be enough for burning:- The ISA-BUS has only got a low priority in a
PCI system The PCI slots generally have "priority" over the ISA slots - so
if the computer happens to be busy doing something else, no data can be transferred
to the CD writer -> a Buffer underrun occurs.
- High CPU load:
When transferring data to the ISA bus a high CPU load occurs (the ISA bus is
not capable of busmastering)
Summary: Burning with an ISA SCSI card is nowhere near as reliable as burning
with a PCI SCSI card.
For "slow" CD writers (and if you are not doing much else with the system while
burning), an ISA-SCSI card may be sufficient - we can not give an absolute limit
because, as mentioned, this depends on the implementation of the "ISA-Bridge"
on the motherboard. Operating a modern 12-times writer on the ISA port will for
example only rarely work.
Recommendation: Buy a PCI SCSI hostadapter - a simple "Fast SCSI-Controller"
(e.g. Tekram 390F) for less than 50 EURO is good enough!
See also:
Questions and Answers - Feurio! CD-Writer general
questions
Questions and Answers - Feurio! CD-Writer problem-solving
Questions and Answers - Main Page
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