Sometimes when I look at my EAC drive settings it will show my Plextor PX-716A (firmware 1.11) as only supporting the speed "Actual". Other times it will list Actual, 4x, and 8x. And other times (even rarer) it'll show a longer list of speeds going up to (IIRC) 40x.

When it allows me to select 40x the image test and copy is quite speedy. This most recent time (first rip after a cold boot) it only allowed me to specify 8x so the process is taking about 20 minutes for the test, and another 20 for copy. Any idea why EAC (0.99pb3) would report different drive speed capabilities for this, the only CD/DVD drive on my system?

I do have EAC configured to slow down if necessary, but ... it started slow. I also have it configured to extract image so it starts by scanning the track gaps. Anything else I should do (or not do), check (or not check ;-)?

Thanks,
Bill

Real Plextor drives like your PX-716A sets the available i.e. allowed extraction speeds on a disc-by-disc basis and is based on a quick quality check done during initialisation of each disc :
http://www.plextor.com/english/support/faqs/HW00012.htm