CD Write Speed

CD write speed is affected by many factors beyond the rated speed of the drive.

Disks can make a difference. Try a different brand of blank CDs.

CPU speed, for full speed burning, you may need a 350MHz or faster CPU. Check with both the drive and burning software manufactures for minimum system requirements.

Same for RAM, you need a minimum of 128 MB of RAM.
However, do not exceed 511MB for Windows 98/Me or that can cause problems.

Free hard drive space: You want at least 1GB of free hard drive space to burn a full 700MB CD.

DMA mode, for some drives, you need to enable DMA mode in BIOS settings, for others, you need to disable DMA mode.

Does your software support 16X burn speed?
If you are using an older version of CD burning software, it may not recognize a faster rate than 4X.

IDE drivers: Your CD-RW drive relies on 2 drivers;
The IDE buss driver for the motherboard,
The drivers that are part of the CD burring software.

Check for updates to both.

Is your PC running in MSDOS compatibility mode?
That can restrict IDE speeds.
Right click on the My Computer icon, select properties, and click on the performance tab.

If there is a notice that some drives are using MSDOS compatibility mode, you will need to correct the problem that is causing it, and then switch back to "standard" mode.
(If you are in MSDOS compatibility mode, I need to know what hardware you have, and what version of Windows you are running.)

Chas

TheChas is right on the mark.

Also check the primary and secondary ribbons.
Case one
Harddrive, CD-R, and CD-RW.
the harddrive and CD-R should be on the same ribbon. The CD-RW on the secondary ribbon.
This case is the best to write data to the CD-RW
from the harddrive.

Case two
2 harddrives, CD-R, and CD-RW.
the master harddrive and CD-R should be on the same ribbon. The second harddrive and CD-RW on the secondary ribbon.
This case the data to be written to the CD-RW should be on the master harddrive.

case three
hardrive and CD-RW
the harddrive on primary ribbon and CD-RW on secondary ribbon.

hope this helps too
good luck