Slow transfer speed...temp fix but why?

I have been battling this problem for weeks. I have a HP pavillion ze4325 notebook and a Sony DVD writer DRX530UL. I have gone thru several PCMCIA USB 2.0 devices and they all seemed to work at full speed sometimes but most of the time the max write rate was .3x to .4x.
By accident I discovered that any motion on my screen..like dragging a window back and forth while writing..the speed would jump to 4.0x..and in fact if I just have windows media player playing a song while writing..everything is fine..if I pause the media player..the write operation immediately goes down rapidly. This is also true for the on board usb port even doing a simple file transfer via drag and drop to an external hard drive...same thing speeds up dramatically when media player is playing (with some sort of video motion). Using the same external hard drive connected direct with a PCMCIA adapter (not usb) this phenomenom does not appear...writes and reads at normal speeds. So problem seems to be in USB and oh yes firewire also. I forgot to mention that monitoring the cpu useage it goes up dramatically like from 6% to 60% or more when I do the media player bit or just drag an icon or window back and forth on the screen. So my question is whats happening here and how can I write at normal speed without doing this. Sorry for the long post it is my first and I am very frustrated...Thanks for any suggestions.
(P.S.>>>my OS is XP Home sp1 and the adapter I settled with is an Adaptec AUA-1422 duo-connect)

Welcome to windrivers calamike. Are you using the adaptec usb2 drivers or the native microsoft drivers? If you are using the microsoft drivers, try the adaptec drivers: http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/sup...n_drv_v321.exe If you are using the adaptec drivers, try the microsoft: http://ask.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adapt...Z2U9MQ**&p_li=

What software are you using for writing?
Have you tried disabling your antivirus while you are writing?

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Originally Posted by hudsonsmith

Welcome to windrivers calamike. Are you using the adaptec usb2 drivers or the native microsoft drivers? If you are using the microsoft drivers, try the adaptec drivers: http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/sup...n_drv_v321.exe If you are using the adaptec drivers, try the microsoft: http://ask.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adapt...Z2U9MQ**&p_li=

What software are you using for writing?
Have you tried disabling your antivirus while you are writing?

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I have disabled antivirus even tried a basic selective startup...with no change. I am currently using just the windows drivers....will try the adaptec ones..however this weird condition is not limited to the usb2.0 device as it also happens on the onboard usb1.1 ports also. It also is not software specific, since I can duplicate the same conditions by merely doing a copy and paste file to an external usb hard drive. When copying a 3 gig file it changes from 45 min or an hour time remaining to 15 minutes transfer time if I move something rapidly on the screen or run media player. As I mentioned in original post, if I connect this hard drive directly to the PCMCIA slot the transfer time is fine and is not affected by screen motion, but onboard USB1.1 and USB2.0 and firewire via PCMCIA card are. Thanks for your response....I guess I could be happy to just run a song on media player every time I want to burn a DVD or transfer a file to external HD but I am probably like a lot of folks here who cannot just let something like this go..there has got to be a solution out there. Thanks again..any more comments/suggestions greatly appreciated.

What irq is your mouse, your video card and your usb ports on?

So Noo's question above makes me immediately ask, chipset drivers present ?

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Originally Posted by NooNoo

What irq is your mouse, your video card and your usb ports on?

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MOUSE=12 VIDEO=10 USB ONBOARD=10 USB/PCMCIA=11
I have made some progress and would like to report here as what I have discovered may help someone else.
First off my processor is an AMD athalon 2000+. It has some sort of stepping feature that varies the processor speed. I can get a snapshot of the current speed by right clicking on my computer and selecting properties..it shows up in the general tab. I noticed that when recording the speed as cut more than half but when I changed the power scheme of my HPze4325 pavillion laptop from "portable/laptop" to "always on" the speed went back to normal on the processor and the record speed of my DVD writer jumped up to a full 4.0x without any of the media player or moving windows around scenariors I mentioned in 1st post. This is repeatable and works every time when using the firewirewire output of my PCMCIA. The USB 2.0 speeds up by a factor of 2 but still only records at 1.5x speed. In that case if I do the windows media player routine it resumes normal record speed. So I guess to summarize, with my particular laptop using the AMD processor it is a good idea to switch power schemes to "always on" which forces the processor to run at full speed...I presume?
So that fixed 100% of the problem using firewire and 50% using USB 2.0.
Have not tried the Adaptec drivers yet since I did not want to introduce too many variables at once..but now I will try them..i do not think they changed the 1394 drivers just the USB.
Any other comments/suggestions regarding the remaining USB 2.0 problem especially based on my comments in this post are more than welcome. Thanks all.

So this 1/2 speed & full speed business is meant to happen (well from whats getting described it does), its a power saving feature to give you maximum battery life for mobile use. If the cpu etc goes full speed you get less battery life !?!

So now having said that & re-reading I'm not so sure you have a problem at all ?
Is all this happening when the laptop is plugged into the mains or not, & is this writer self or seperately powered ? ?

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Originally Posted by confus-ed

So this 1/2 speed & full speed business is meant to happen (well from whats getting described it does), its a power saving feature to give you maximum battery life for mobile use. If the cpu etc goes full speed you get less battery life !?!

So now having said that & re-reading I'm not so sure you have a problem at all ?
Is all this happening when the laptop is plugged into the mains or not, & is this writer self or seperately powered ? ?

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Yes, I am plugged into the main AC power and the DVD writer and the external drive both have external powersupplies connected. The DVD writer can operate with USB 2.0 or firewire (not at the same time of course). Aslong as I have the computer set to "always on" the firewire will work fine 100% of the time as long as thats the first thing I try. If I try the USB 2.0 port first then even though the processor is running at full speed the write speed on the firewire will be reduced if I try it after using the USB 2.0 port. In that case I have to use the "safely remove" icon on the task bar to remove the drive then remove the PCMCIA card and then reinsert. Then using firewire is ok. Unbelievable but true!
I have not tried the Adaptec drivers yet and that may resolve the USB 2.0 problem...I just don't want to mess up the firewirewire operation which seems ok now. So if in summary, the USB 2.0 port runs about twice as fast when I change to "always on" but it is still at least 3 times slower than it should be and can be speeded up only if I have some kind of motion going across the screen either manually dragging something or playing a song on media player with the canned video displays it has. This is also the case even still with firewire if I use it after plugging in a usb 2.0 device...and yes I "safely" removed the USB 2.0 device before plugging in the firewire device. I guess once the resources are used they continue to be used even after unplugging the device unless I "safely remove" the PCMCIA card and reinstall then Firewire works if used first and no USB 2.0 device is plugged in. Ok sorry I am rambling..going crazy with this stuff. Thanks for your reply..and have a good weekend!