Okay... if your drive is 52x, that means the maximum possible data transfer rate is 52 times faster than that for realtime audio (which is about 650Kb/sec) with spindle speeds of about 12,000rpm. When they decide on that 52x24x52x stuff, that's done in a lab where they run the drive flat-out until it dies to find out what it's capable of before they can sell it

But you'll almost NEVAAAAR get it to actually run that fast in your computer. The only time it comes close is when installing ma-hoosive programs from CDs, and don't forget you're also limited by how fast the system can process the data to and from the drive - if it can't keep up you'll have problems. As Master Vivi said, enabling DMA is a good idea - as it's name suggests, it allows the drive to directly stuff information into the memory. This frees up more CPU access time for the rest of the system

If you can reliably copy CDs at 32x, I wouldn't complain that's pretty good. I don't think there's anything wrong with your drive at all. The problem could be that Nero is a pile of wank, I've seen a lot of people have trouble with it... if you need anything better, I may have something useful for you.