Sony Optiarc DVDRW drive problem

[repoman0]

Hi all,

My recent build has an SATA Sony Optiarc DVDRW drive in it - but when I make music CDs, they won't play right in my car's CD player. My CD-Rs skip and when I tested with CD-RW it wouldn't play at all. The CD player worked perfectly fine with every CD I made using my Lenovo T400 laptop and it also has worked with every CD that my girlfriend made for me.

However, the CDs that I make with this DVD burner play fine in my DVD player at home. I'm confused about this - should I try sending the drive back? I've already requested a replacement RMA through Newegg..

 

[Dahak]

Two things I would look at are
1) the cd-r media itself, as in don't use off brand or no name cds
2) burn the audio cds at a lower speed. I usually suggest 8x or slower.

 

[repoman0]

Two things I would look at are
1) the cd-r media itself, as in don't use off brand or no name cds
2) burn the audio cds at a lower speed. I usually suggest 8x or slower.

1. It's good quality Ridata 48x media, always worked in the past with my laptop burner at 24x.
2. Tried 24x and 16x with this media and other media and it still had problems in my car's CD player.

I am sending the drive back for a replacement, will let you know if the new one works or not.

 

[nipplefish]

In my experience certain drives are partial to certain brands of discs. You should have tried a different brand of disc before replacing the drive. I haven't had the best of luck with Ridata's, myself.

 

[repoman0]

In my experience certain drives are partial to certain brands of discs. You should have tried a different brand of disc before replacing the drive. I haven't had the best of luck with Ridata's, myself.

I tried both Verbatim and Memorex CD-R and CD-RW in addition to Ridata, both had the same issue even at very slow burn speeds. I've had excellent luck with Ridata in the past, zero problems until I used this drive.

 

[repoman0]

Update:

Received the new drive and installed it. Upon bootup I was immediately disappointed that it made an annoying grinding noise, trying to find a CD to boot from. It makes this noise every time I close the drive door, with a CD in it or not.

Not a big enough deal to be upset about I decided if it would burn a working audio CD - so I made one at 8x, tried it in my car, and it played about a half second of audio, got stuck, then said "NO TRACK FOUND".

My conclusion: Sony Optiarc DVD drives are worthless pieces of garbage so I will send it back for a refund, eat the $3 restocking fee and use my old IDE NEC 3550 DVD burner.

Edit: Actually decided to buy a $19 ASUS burner with great reviews on Newegg for the faster DVD burning speeds (24x) and SATA to reduce cable clutter.

 

[0roo0roo]

burn slower...way slower.
use different media
i've never associated ritek with "quality".
sony burners are as good as any other.
your car stereo is a pos if it can't play regular burn cds. stop blaming the burner. old car stereos were esp picky about media. there was no such thing as a 16 or 32x cdr when some of those cd players were made. they have compatibility "issues". stop blaming the burner.

 

[repoman0]

burn slower...way slower.
use different media
i've never associated ritek with "quality".
sony burners are as good as any other.
your car stereo is a pos if it can't play regular burn cds. stop blaming the burner. old car stereos were esp picky about media. there was no such thing as a 16 or 32x cdr when some of those cd players were made. they have compatibility "issues". stop blaming the burner.

Umm, ok.. I guess 8x (lowest allowed speed by the way in Nero) isn't slow enough, considering my Lenovo T400 burner wrote the VERY SAME media at 24x (it's highest allowed speed) and my car could read it with no problems. And if you had read the thread you would know I've used four different brands of media all with the same results, regardless of burn speed.

Thanks anyway though.

 

[0roo0roo]

These are the oddities in burned media. The question is whether most modern cd players can read the disc, and bet most can. old players can be ridiculously fussy, many weren't even supposed to read cdr. You might not like it, but its just how it is, any cheap dvd player these days could probably read any disc you threw at it from your sony burner, its just the old players that could potentially throw a fuss. so you lucked out on your first combination..big whoop, don't draw conclusions from that.

 

[repoman0]

These are the oddities in burned media. The question is whether most modern cd players can read the disc, and bet most can. old players can be ridiculously fussy, many weren't even supposed to read cdr. You might not like it, but its just how it is, any cheap dvd player these days could probably read any disc you threw at it from your sony burner, its just the old players that could potentially throw a fuss. so you lucked out on your first combination..big whoop, don't draw conclusions from that.

Yeah you might be right. I tried another burner with the same results (ironically an older Sony NEC Optiarc) and it had the same results with Ritek media. It's just crazy that three different laptops (mine, my girlfriend's and one of her family's) made readable CDs with the same media. I always thought laptop drives were worse than their desktop counterparts.

Regardless I will try one more drive, a Lite-On iHAS124 borrowed from a friend. I have about 80 of these Ritek media and want to be able to use them - and my car is the only place I do. If that drive works I'll buy one of my own.

 

[ecom]

burn slower...way slower.
use different media
i've never associated ritek with "quality".
sony burners are as good as any other.
your car stereo is a pos if it can't play regular burn cds. stop blaming the burner. old car stereos were esp picky about media. there was no such thing as a 16 or 32x cdr when some of those cd players were made. they have compatibility "issues". stop blaming the burner.

+1 Back in the day, Ritek was near the bottom in terms of quality. Not sure where" they rank now though. Their only selling point was probably price to those who didn't care or know better. Taiyo Yuden was towards the top and Fuji and TDK used to sell rebranded Taiyo yuden but I'm not sure if they still do that. I think Fuji went to Ritek or CMC magnetics at some point. Verbatim has sold high quality disks all along from Mitsubishi. May not be as good as Taiyo Yuden, but better than a lot of stuff out there. Whether any of this is still accurate I have no idea, but when 8x CD burners ruled, this was accurate...

 

[Rifter]

Did not real all replies. There is no such thing as high quality Ridata media, stick to Taiyo yuden and you will be fine. Burning slower would also be a good idea.

 

[repoman0]

It was always my understanding that Ritek was good media, at least back in the day. Maybe not anymore. Will try some Taiyo Yuden. However I'm still sending my Sony drive back because of the grinding noise

 

[0roo0roo]

Ritek was never good, it was cheap.
Grinding noise..argh..if you want quiet you are going to have to stop paying for 20 dollar drives. What do you expect at a 20 dollar price point. Some customers are not worth the trouble of servicing. Stop abusing the system. your "understanding" is based on lack of knowledge. stop stop trusting your judgement.

 

[repoman0]

Ritek was never good, it was cheap.
Grinding noise..argh..if you want quiet you are going to have to stop paying for 20 dollar drives. What do you expect at a 20 dollar price point. Some customers are not worth the trouble of servicing. Stop abusing the system. your "understanding" is based on lack of knowledge. stop stop trusting your judgement.

Newegg will just charge me a $3 restocking fee and sell my drive again. The Lite-On drive makes perfectly readable CDs by the way, so I will be getting that and sending mine back so I can use my 80+ CD-R media. Not to mention it isn't the loudest part in my computer like that Sony drive. And how much does it cost? $20! Who knew you could buy a drive that doesn't grind to hell whenever it reads a CD for that much

Also I have spent over $7k at Newegg, so if they think I'm not worth servicing then I'll gladly take my business elsewhere.

If you don't like it, get out of my thread and nerd rage less please.

 

[0roo0roo]

Newegg will just charge me a $3 restocking fee and sell my drive again. The Lite-On drive makes perfectly readable CDs by the way, so I will be getting that and sending mine back so I can use my 80+ CD-R media. Not to mention it isn't the loudest part in my computer like that Sony drive. And how much does it cost? $20! Who knew you could buy a drive that doesn't grind to hell whenever it reads a CD for that much

Also I have spent over $7k at Newegg, so if they think I'm not worth servicing then I'll gladly take my business elsewhere.

If you don't like it, get out of my thread and nerd rage less please.

lol you are the only one suffering from nerd rage. all that trouble over a cherished 10 dollar stack of old ritek discs.

 

[repoman0]

lol you are the only one suffering from nerd rage. all that trouble over a cherished 10 dollar stack of old ritek discs.

Rather than spend $30 on a stack of shiny new Taiyo Yuden why wouldn't I just get a burner that can use my discs, rather than waste them?

Doesn't matter anyway. Problem is solved. I get a quiet drive that can use my existing media.