Cd Ripping Speeds?

[plan9]

First, just wanted to thank all of you for excellent help so far. It's an additional thing that's made switching from PC to Mac even easier.

And now my question - what affects CD Rip speeds? And I mean behind the scenes, OS, or hardware things.. I am ripping w/ iTunes, and usually get 7x on average.. but today, everything is going around 3.5x... I am not running ANY other apps besides iTunes.. I thought it might be older CDs, but I put in a brand new one and it is still at about 3.5x..

Thanks!
Jason

 

[plan9]

Ram?

The only thing I can think of is that I upgraded the RAM from 256MB to 640MB over the weekend.. That is the only thing different.. I looked at process viewer, and while ripping iTunes is using 80-98% of the CPU, about 3% memory.

Is it possible that something about iTunes and the RAM conflict? The iBook seems to work wonderfully otherwise, so I'd doubt the RAM is an issue (the brand, etc).. I got PC100 So-DIMM, as instructed..

Ugh, when I start to rip, it actually starts at around 1.5x and works its way up to around 3.5x... It was starting at 7x and staying around there, never lower than 6.5x, sometimes up to 7.5x...

 

[Graphite]

Sometimes older Cds rip differently, songs closer to #1 will burn slower than songs closer to the end. It all depends on the CD really...they might just be a type of CD with super good quality so your mac will take more time with it.

I would say its just the Cds..

 

[plan9]

Sometimes older Cds rip differently, songs closer to #1 will burn slower than songs closer to the end. It all depends on the CD really...they might just be a type of CD with super good quality so your mac will take more time with it.

I would say its just the Cds..

I wish that was the case, but after 30 CDs, it is every single one, regardless of old/new/etc...

 

[Padawan]

Well I'm not sure why the new RAM would affect the ripping speed, but you could always try removing it to see if that changes anythiing. I'm running 640 MB too, and I just ripped a song as a test and had a constant 6.7-6.8x from start to finish.

 

[plan9]

So I called AppleCare - he had me reboot in OS9, and run iTunes - 8.2x ripping speeds.. So it's a software issue.. I created a new user in OS X, and it still had the problem, so it seems to be either an OS X iTunes problem or just an OS X problem. He suggested an archive install, which I'll do tonight.. I am just happy it isn't the optical drive..

Is it possible that iTunes just gets bloated and slows down??? I have a tremendous amount of music in there, could that be it?