I've had experience with the CD drive you have mentioned... It really isn't all that fast for a 52x. But I think 10x sounds quite a bit slower than it really should be.

Keep in mind though, most CD-ROMs never even get close to their maximum read speed. This is especially true for faster CD-ROMs in the 40x+ range.

While you are benchmarking your CD-ROM, it is important to try different CDs. Certain CDs can read faster than others. For example, if you were using an audio CD, then the read speed for your Creative 52x would be dramatically reduced. Also, CDs with scuffs, scratches and CDs that have not been professionally pressed could also give you "bad" results.

About the only thing that could adversely affect your CD-ROM performance would be whether it is in DMA mode or not. Your CD-ROM will either run in DMA or PIO mode - DMA being the fastest and PIO mode being the slowest. So you'll probably want to check and make sure that your CD-ROM is indeed running in DMA mode.

You can check this in Device Manager under "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" and double click on both "Primary" and "Secondary" controllers. Once the little box pops up, check out the "Advanced Settings" tab.

Next, make sure all the pull down menus are set to "DMA if available". Sometimes even if "DMA if available" is selected, drives will still run in PIO mode.. This is usually a fault with the IDE bus drivers, operating system, hardware configuration or the BIOS itself. You can tell what mode the drives are currently running in by looking at the "Curent Transfer Mode" label. If any of them say PIO, then you should see to it that you can get them to run in DMA mode.

Once you change all of the pull down menus to "DMA if available", then reboot for the changes to take effect. Any reasonably modern system should have DMA enabled for all of their drives. PIO modes are reserved for very old, legacy computer equipment.


Other than the PIO mode problem and different types of CD media, there's not a whole lot that will enhance your CD-ROM's transfer rate. I agree that 10x sounds pretty low, but keep in mind you'll never see anything close to 52x in real world benchmarks.