2 Questions - CD and Music

Hey there

2 Questions really. Firstly, I have a Asus 48X CDRW drive. Usually it takes
around 4-5 minutes to burn an entire 700MB CD. However recently it has been
burning at double this speed, taking up to 11 minutes to burn a cd. Music
still burns OK, but video is occassionally of a low framerate compared to the
original on my hardisk. Is there any reason for this happening? I primarily
use Ahead Nero as my burn program. Thanks

Problem No.2:

When I now play music on my PC from my hardrive, it plays fine. But
occassionally the music will "skip" approximately 0.5 - 1 second in either
direction, forward or reverse. Its happening increasingly (either that or I'm
noticing it more). Any reason for this happening? Should I just defragment my
hardrive (although that is done every month)?

Hope you can help with this problem!


Thanks

CMO