A while ago I purchased an LG CD-ROM GCR 8523B. I like the idea of using EAC "Copy CD..." tool in secure extraction mode. I already owned the writer version (8520B) of basically the same drive just an earlier production run. I noticed on DAE with the 8523B the fastest extraction speed I could ever manage was 3.6x. The other drive has reached as high as 11.0x (secure mode) when resources are available. I have each drive on their own IDE bus. Both drives are 52x read capable and essentially the same reader. I have tried to tweak the detection methods in the 8523B without any change.
I think this DAE is rather slow for a drive with technology that is about a year old. Could the DAE speed in secure mode be so different between these sister drives? Are there any GCR 8523B with different (better) DAE numbers?

around 11x is the normal value for EAC secure mode with the "disable cache" option enabled. are you using the same options for both drives?

Also, have you checked that DMA is enabled for the new drive?

So by your statement, you imply that the 3.6x is not normal for EAC secure mode? The options concerning DAE are the same: Secure mode with 'Accurate Stream' - enabled; Drive caches audio data - enabled; ...Capable of C2 error information - disabled

Funny you should post that. Just before I logged on into this forum again and read your reply I just went to double check that setting in the Device Manager and it was not. I changed it to DMA Transfer Mode and noticed that the drive is capable of MultiWord DMA Mode 2 as opposed to the GCE drive's drive setting of Utlra DMA Mode 2. A significant difference?

Well the troubles seem to mount for this drive. Changing the hardware setting for the IDE channel to DMA transfer mode didn't increase the speed at all.
Another problem points to this drive. I used to make backup copies of my CD's >> CD-R's. Until I installed cdrdao with the latest version of EAC everything was ok. Now I noticed that the wav file from the copy is silent and hence so is the CD-R. I uninstalled EAC .95 Beta 2 with cdrdao and installed an older version of EAC but the silent wav files persist. Be nice to have this drive perform as well as it's writer twin.

I've ran into that on a few random occasions over the past few years with EAC, I don't know what causes it, and still don't have any ideal as to why it happens. My first thoughts were an ASPI driver/layer issue however using different ASPI drivers/layers (Adaptec/Roxio, Nero, Vob) didn't fix it for me, however I must repeat it was completely random in my situation.

As for the speed issue you "may be able to speed things up a bit," by having EAC detect gaps then quickly cancel it or let it continue, and then begin ripping whilst the drive is still spinning the disc.

Heh yeah that's a good trick, I usually use EAC's built-in cdplayer before ripping to spin up the disc, sometimes EAC doesn't get into gear when you start ripping from an idle drive. EAC's own "spin up drive before extraction" option sucks because it does spin up before every single track

Unfortunately, there is a ~33% chance that EAC will freeze and crash when I press the "stop" button during playback. Happens for all versions, a very annoying bug, yet I'm too lazy to report it to the EAC forum

After some lurking around various sites, googling and opening up my box, I think I'll be stuck with 3.0x speed (secure mode) on my LG GCR-8523B. I checked my bios settings for that drive as well as the DMA transfer mode within XP and the drive does not support Ultra-DMA mode.

I am suprised because my 1st LG (8520B) drive is a writer and acheives DAE speeds of up to 11.0x (secure) In fact it doesn't even need an 80 pin cable to run in UDMA 2. Its 40 pin cable doesn't seem to bottleneck it all. I was happy with that. That's why I went out and bought the CD-R version. Maybe I shouldn't have assumed that a drive in the same family would perform equally well and contain the same technology. Caveat emptor!

Just to point out UDMA 2 (Atapi 4) max xfer rate is 33.3MB/s, while 80 'conductor' cable
never hurts, it's only required on UDMA 4+, which is 66.6Mb/s on up. (actually UDMA 3 but thats pretty much non-existent)

Even your cd-rom running at max spin speed if a far cry from causing a bottleneck.

What chipset does your mainboard use? If it's a Via chipset have you installed
the latest (or newer) 4-in-1 drivers or whatever manufacturers IDE drivers if
available?

Its a mod of an Intel 865...865E??? The board is an P4P800-E. I think the E is the enhancement of the 865..something to do with either the northbridege or southbridge. Too tired to go look it up. Anyway. I'll have to live with a the inferior drive