24 speed cd writing ?

I just bought a Plextor 24x10x40 writer, as my yamaha 16x writer died at the weekend.

I've fitted the writer, but it won't write at anywhere near 24x.

If i set it to burn at 16x it writes the leadin track and just hangs. I've tried CDRWIN & clonecd, clonecd displays the buffer status, and that stays at 100%, but it won't write.

I slowed the burn down to 10x, burning mp3 -> cd and on play back, its just hiss. It took 20 min @ 10x, which is wrong too :(

There was an article on this site about 24x writers, how do u get it to write at 24x ?

System spec :

Win98SE (yeah i know but its only for games)
Asus A7V133 Mobo
Amd TBird 1.1Ghz
512Mb Ram
Creative SB Platinum Sound Card
Hercules Prophet II Mx Grafix Card
1 x 30Gb Hdd
1 x 60Gb Hdd
Panasonic DVD Reader
Plextor 2410 Cd Rewriter

Any suggestions appreciated.

I have the same writer and from the off it has burnt at 24 speed no problems. Make sure that your Chipset drivers are upto date, especially the IDE. Don't have the drive on the same cable as the DVD. Make sure DMA is enabled for it. Try Nero that is supplied with it.

Also it is imperative that you have the right Media as well. Currently I am using the Acer 24x branded CDR media (£4.99 for 10 from PC World (about the only real thing worth buying from there!!)) and burning full CDR's in around 3 minutes

Another suggestion deals with a bios setting to detect the drive, set the bios to none for that particular drive instead of auto and see if that helps. It worked for Talonboy a few threads back.