Slow Ripping Speed on Dell Laptop

[OvERaCiD23]

Dell I8K
Windows 2K Pro/XP (Dual boot, same speed in both)
Intel P3 @ 900mhz
256mb RAM
8x DVD (Toshiba SD-C2502) - Ultra DMA enabled
7200rpm Firewire HD (22mb/sec read and write)

I only rip at 2.6x max, usually around 2.3x. I've searched back in the forums and can't find any more information to help me. I use DVD Decrypter, but all the rippers operate at the same speed. CPU load during ripping is only at 20%. Does anyone have any suggestions?

[klona]

Quite a common problem.
I have a DELL inspiron 4100 and it's even worst. About 0,8 X on average.

I see three reasons :
- Slim/slow power DVD are not so efficient as standard ones, even if they have the same marketing name 8X or whatever
- Sometimes, CD, DVD are not really IDE in laptops. They are on a proprietary bus, which allows electrical hotswap and are less expensive on the CD/DVD parts. Then it's translate to IDE through a driver which emulate IDE or an hardware bridge.
Any way, you can expect poor performances.
- Dell use standard installation on their laptop. I did a fresh new installation from windows CD and I had a 20% faster PC (not in cpu of course, but in general use)

[OvERaCiD23]

Yes, after completely reinstalling my OSs, the computer runs much faster. I just formatted the whole HD when I acquired 2000 & XP, and did it all myself. Huge difference.
Sucks to know that I'm not going to get much more performance. Although it's not that big of a deal that I rip the VOBs that slow, I still make good time encoding (10-18fps).