Check this out bro...
I noticed a similar problem a few days ago and did a google search and was comforted to see I wasn't alone... not only were my burning speeds more than doubled (audio discs that would burn in 4 minutes at 16x were taking 8-9 minutes and videos that would burn in 15 minutes at 4x were taking over half an hour) but my computer was also running very very sluggish whenever I would engage a burn... a problem I never had before.
I came across this suggestion and I am back to burning as good as new.
Go to CONTROL PANEL -> SYSTEM -> HARDWARE -> click on DEVICE MANAGER...
Find the IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS section and expand the list (it should now show 3 items) double click on the PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL -> click on the ADVANCED SETTING tab... if it says PIO in the CURRENT TRANSFER MODE you found your problem! Now check the same with your SECONDARY IDE CHANNEL.
Now to fix it...
Back at the DEVICE MANAGER -> IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS section... right click on PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL and select UNINSTALL. Confirm to continue, but DO NOT RESTART THE CPU AT THIS TIME.
Repeat the same uninstall process for the SECONDARY IDE CHANNEL... this time restart the computer.
This will force Windows to automatically reinstall the IDE drivers.
Then restart the computer again and you should be good to go.
Like I said, I had a similar 'slow burning' problem to the one you described and this worked like a charm.
Hope it helps!
(Thanks goes to posts at
www.cdrinfo.com and
www.gidforums.com)