LG CDR/RW burning audio cds issues *UPDATED* Need Help

[thebunk]

Hey folks I am new here and hoping you guys can help me out with a massive problem I am having. I purchased an LG 8400B CDR/RW burner in October 2002. Three months ago when ever I burnt an audio CD, it seemed that the first few songs would play fine in my factory car stereo but then each song therafter would play but with crackles, hiss and scratchy noises. I want to also say that my car stereo played all kinds of burnt cd brands for 1.5 years until around this January. I do not know if I installed something or what but anyway, I have not been able to successfully burn an audio cd that will play in my car stereo since. All of my CDs that were burnt before January still play fine as do all of my "Real" music cds.

So here is what I have tried so far:
I have tried 3 different brands of cdrs (Imation, Cursor and generic blank cdrs) and both have the exact same results. First 1 or 2 songs are fine, the ones after that skip, hiss, etc. The odd thing these cds play fine in my PC's cdrom and in my Apex DVD player.

I have tried pretty much every ASPI layer that I can find and have used ForceASPI but nothing.

I have tried a cd cleaner but nothing.

I have tried burning at 2x (and it is a 40x writer) and I get the same results.

I have reformatted my harddrive and reinstalled Win2K. This did nothing.

I had a friend burn an audio cd on a Cursor cdr on his HP External writer and it worked like a charm in my car cd player. The same Cursor cdrs do nothing when burnt on my cdwriter but spit it out after crackling and hissing for a bit.

I am running Win2K and have tried using Easy Cd Creator 5 & 6, Fire Burner and Nero 5.5, all with the same results. I have an IWill KK266 motherboard and AMD 1.2Ghz CPU. I have not added any new hardware to cause a conflict either. I should note that my data and VCD/SVCDs are fine. It is just my newly burnt audio cds. Any suggestions? I am just abou tready to send this thing back to LG while it is still under warrenty.

[TheWizard]

How do the audio CD's sound in your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive? Any crackles or hisses after the first couple tracks?

[CDRecorder]

Welcome to CDRLabs, thebunk!

Try using the CD Quality Check function of Nero CDSpeed on one of the discs that doesn't work. Are there any errors, or does the reading drop suddenly at any time during the reading?

PS The CDSpeed website seems to be down, but CDSpeed is comes with Nero 5.5, which you said that you have, and it is in the "Nero Toolbox" folder in the "Ahead Nero" folder on your start menu.

[thebunk]

How do the audio CD's sound in your CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive? Any crackles or hisses after the first couple tracks?

Nope. Cds work perfect in my CDRom all the way through.

[TheWizard]

Nope. Cds work perfect in my CDRom all the way through.

Which leads me to believe the audio CD's are fine, it's your car CD player that's the problem. Although, the audio CD's burned on your friend's HP burner and played in your car CD player doesn't make any sense since those are fine. It's a very strange puzzle. Perhaps thebunk has been bunked! Now, if only we could debunk the situation...

[eliminator]

Make sure you have the latest firmware 1.04 too.

[CDRecorder]

Yep, eliminator's right. Why didn't I think of that?

[eliminator]

cause there can be only one elim !

[thebunk]

Make sure you have the latest firmware 1.04 too.

If I upgrade the firmware, will it void the warrenty? Also, LG does not seem to have any firmware on their site for download. Anyone know where I can obtain it with install instructions? Thanks in advance.

[Inertia]

The latest firmware for your drive on the LG Electonics US site is version 1.03, although there are v1.04 versions at non-LG sites.

If a firmware flash fails in a LG drive, the warranty is voided and they will not assume responsibility for the drive failure. Unlike Liteons, which can be recovered even if a firmware flash fails, with a LG you are sunk. See the LG policy at LG GCE-8400B Firmware.

Personally, I would return the drive before flashing it if it is still under warranty. The drive replacement might hopefully contain the latest firmware (and especially if you request it).

Car CD players are notoriously of low quality and very picky about media. Some combinations work and some don't. Media using cyanine dye has a much wider range of sensitivity to laser power settings compared to pthalocyanine dye sensitivity. As writers and readers age, their calibration settings or power capability may change enough to push them into failure with certain combinations of media and hardware.

I would try using a cyanine dye based media such as Taiyo Yuden and see if this will work in your car player. This TY media is labeled as Fuji in the US and perhaps in other areas also.

Read the Media Compatibility With CD-RW Drives - Which Media Is Best? for more information on media types and cyanine dye based media availability.

[thebunk]

Hey folks. Well here is a bit of an update from my previous post from many months ago.

After not getting my older 40x cd burner to burn an audio cd without it producing crackling noises upon playback, I RMA'd the drive with LG and they sent me a new 52X write drive in its place. The drive burnt probaly 25 cdrs great over the span of 3 months or so, with no problems. Unfortunantely I seem to be now having the same problem with this drive a I did with the last one. When I burn an audio CDr (source is MP3 to WAV on the fly) it seems the first 8 or so tracks are fine but as we get to the tracks near the end of the CD they start to crackle and pop and gets worse with as it gets to the end. This is the same symptoms as I had before . Eventually. with more burns, more tracks are plagued with the same cracklling problem until the disc is totally unreadable. I am conviced that there is either a conflict of some sort or something in my system is making my burner go bad. One of the only things I have not tried is putting the burner into another PC and doing a burn from there.

Does anyone have any suggestions that have not already been stated above? I am really at my wits end here.

[thebunk]

Looks like otehr people have had this problem in the past as well with burning Audio cds with LGs.

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... t=audio+lg

http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... t=audio+lg

[TheWizard]

Did any of the other posts help? Is it the stereo you are playing the discs in that had cracking and hissing? Are you sure it isn't Win2000?

[thebunk]

Did any of the other posts help? Is it the stereo you are playing the discs in that had cracking and hissing? Are you sure it isn't Win2000?

Its all the stereos I am playing it in (car stereo, 2 different cd players).

I think it has to be Windows 2000 or a conflict between my motherboard and the burner. I have down to those two. I am going to acquire a copy of XP and try to install it to see if that fixes it. In the mean time any other ideas?

[TheWizard]

Hmm, do you have another machine that you install the burner in and try? If you have another machine already set up, moving the burner from your current machine to the other machine is just as tedious as installing XP. It's not that hard, just a bit time-consuming.

[CDRecorder]

If you have another machine already set up, moving the burner from your current machine to the other machine is just as tedious as installing XP.

Except that it won't take nearly as long as installing XP.

[TheWizard]

Depending on the machine specs. But I agree, installing XP is a drawn-out process.