(phew, I come here for a quick question about EAC only to find all this Karma Kraziness. Cool.)

I'm working on reripping a handfull of CDs which didn't rip correctly during my year 2000 rippings (with AudioCatalyst and EZCD+L3ENC). Taking tips from here, I'm using EAC with the latest LAME. But I want to make sure I get it right this time, so I have some questions.

First off, I'm ripping on an Athlon 1.4 with a sad copy of Win98 on it. My 40x LG Electronics CD Rom drive is ripping pristeen CDs at like 0.7x with NO incidents of error correction. Why is it running so slow? Can I get it back to ripping at 8x like I could with Audio Catylist?

Funny, because my P166 running Windows 2000 is using its 32x Plextor CDR drive to rip at like 2x. Why the speed difference?

An old external 12x SCSI 1 CDRom drive on my P166 used to rip CDs like a friggin race car. Should I give that a try to speed things up? Or, should I stick with my newer Plextor drive?

Thanks.