Hey guys, I'm pretty much a retard as far as this stuff goes, but I'm having some trouble with EAC. Every time I convert a cd to an mp3, when I check the folder after it's done, 3-4 songs out of the cd will be missing, and I'll have to re-do them. At first, this was a minor annoyance, but now it's annoying as hell. Do you know what might be wrong, and what I can do to fix this?

Take a look at your EAC Options > Extraction tab. Sounds like tracks are getting skipped due to read errors or timeout.

What should I specifically be looking for in the tab? Everything I have checked right now are:

Fill up missing offset samples with silence
No use of null samples
Synchronize between tracks
Lock drive tray during extraction

And:

Extraction and compression priority: Normal
Error Recovery Quality: Medium

Anything else I should have checked, or should anything be changed?

I think hellokeith was talking about the "Skip extraction on read or sync errors" checkbox.

It seemed like a good call, but I guess you don't have it checked.

Snaps. Do you have any other ideas? Maybe if I changed extraction and compression priority from medium to high or something of that persuasion?

A - There is no need to set priority over "Normal" and instability may result.
B - Are you closing the EAC window before conversion is complete?

No I'm not. And even if I was, it's not usually the last songs that are missing, just random songs in the middle.
It's getting ridic. though, like 5 songs missing out off 11 on this last cd.

Firstly, try updating the firmware for the device that you rip music. I was having all sorts of problems with EAC and my drive until I did that.

Secondly, try using something other than EAC to rip music. FooBar2000 is great to rip music and I feel has friendlier menu options and configurations. If you are interested I have written myself notes about using LAME and know how to integrate LAME into FooBar with custom rip settings.

Lastly, if you feel the need to keep using EAC, try ripping your CD as a single WAV with a CUE sheet. You'll have to listen to the WAV and you might find some tracks garbled. Sure sign of errors.

How do I go about updating the firmware?

Go here. Its has everything you need

http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php

Call me a moron (and you'd be totally right) but I can't figure this site out. For one thing, I don't know what my drives are, I see the option for

DVD-Recorder
Combo CDRW/DVD
CD-Recorder

However, the cd drive says hp cd-writer, not cd-recorder. I don't know if it's considered the Combo CDRW/DVD also, there is a cd drive and a dvd drive, but they're two separate drives, and combo infers it's just one wouldn't it? If you could (or if anyone reading this is knowledgeable) hit me up on aim: foxygrandpa1027.

Thanks

Writer/recorder are the same thing. A CDRW/DVD combo can read DVDs and CDs but only burn CDs.

Do you know the model? EAC will report it in the drive dropdown at the top right of the main window.

I must admit I don't know whether the firmware really is the issue here, but I admittedly don't have any other ideas, and in most circumstances it can't make things worse.

Well, it sounds plausible that the drive could be the issue. Do you think you could aim me at foxygrandpa1027?

I'd be eternally grateful, haha.

I don't use AIM.

Post your model here and we can find the firmware you need. That's pretty much all that needs to be done.