suggestions on CDRW and DVD drives please

[SHUJeff]

I'm having a new comp built and this is what I'd like to put in it so far...AMD2200+, a7v333, geforce ti 4200, soundblaster audigy platinum (unless the onboard 6ch is good) WD 80 gig HD, 512mb pc2700 antec true 430 ps, antec dx01wd case...that's what i have so far. What i don't know about is cd & dvd drives. the cdrw doesn't have to be top of the line i don't need anything more than about 24 or 32x. same goes for the DVD drive i guess 16x is satisfactory.

thank you

 

[Kingofcomputer]

lite-on and lite-on.

 

[GraveJoKer]

LITE-ON.... is the Kingofcomputer

 

[SHUJeff]

that's really funny that you both said lite-on...i hadn't heard of them before today when my friend said he just bought a lite-on cdrw...thanks for the advice

 

[Jumpem]

I have a Plextor 40x cdr but the Lite-On seems like a better deal. I'd get the slot-loading 16x Plextor for a dvd drive.

 

[GraveJoKer]

Man ... those slot loaders are cool...
Alas .. I too wanted to get the slot loader ... but newegg just went out of stock when I wanted to buy it ...
so had to purchase a tray one ....

 

[bsauerbr]

Definitely Lite-On.

The 24x 24102B CDRW has been great since last year. The 32x and higher speeds are very cheap right now.

I just got the 16x LTD-163 DVD-ROM through the Hot Deals forum from Dell for $36.xx. See if the deal is still avail.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

the best is plextor for cd-rw, pioneer for dvd-rom, but you have to pay double the price of lite-on.

you'ven't heard of lite-on because they just went to the retail channel about 1-2 years ago.
lite-on has been in the oem business for a long time, many stuff are actually made by lite-on that you don't know.

 

[GraveJoKer]

Kingofcomputer
I disagree with you ... for the plextor part... check out any review that compares Liteon vs Plextor...
Plextor sucks in many many aspects like DAE, reading scratched CDs etc. The list is simply huge.
The only bad things about liteon I would say is slow CloneCD speeds and inability to read copy-protected audio CDs.

Let me refer you to an excellent review on cdrinfo.com


40x CD-RW Roundup

JoKer

 

[Kingofcomputer]

oh yes, I just bought the Lite-on 40x from Dell recently.
I don't know why I still said Plextor is the best.

 

[Relayer]

I prefer Plextor. I have had many Liteon drives fail, and never had a problem with a Plextor.

 

[TheWart]

plextor.....pioneer

 

[Relayer]

I would look at getting a Toshiba DVD drive.

 

[mbf]

Originally posted by: Kingofcomputer
lite-on and lite-on.

Hmmm, about a week ago, I'd have agreed with you. Now I'm not really so sure. I've just finished building my latest rig a couple of days ago, and now I find myself wasting *HUGE* amounts of time troubleshooting.... guess what, my Lite-On CDRW and DVD drives!

It all started with the DVD drive, a Lite-On LTD-163, filling up my event log (running WinXP) with one timeout error after the other (Event ID 9, "The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort1, did not respond within the timeout period.") Oh, and the occasional bad block error too! My shiny new CDRW drive, a Lite-On LTR-40125W, didn't exhibit these errors. So at least the CDRW drive is fine, I thought to myself. Oh boy, was I ever wrong! Day before yesterday I had a friend over. At one point we had some stuff to be burned on CD, and since I hadn't tried that yet, I was looking forward to how the drive would perform. Well, turns out the Lite-On CDRW is a great reader, just has a tiny flaw; it can't detect blank media! Well, woohoo! NOT!!!

So, since then I've *really* done nothing besides troubleshooting these damn drives. I've already changed the IDE cable several times. Originally I used a 40 conductor IDE cable right out of the box. Since then I've tried two brand new 80 conductor cables. All to no avail. I have of course also flashed new firmware on both drives, and taking great care in doing so. Problems are still there. Or rather, now I can write CDs, but they're all coasters! I have to point out here, that I'm using official firmware, and I've both written and read the firmware, so I could to a binary compare. The drives were definitely flashed the right way.

Also, now that the CDRW drive *can* recognize blank media I'm treated to a new error for the CDRW drive instead: Event ID 51, "An error was detected on device \Device\CdRom1 during a paging operation." Isn't that special?

It should be mentioned, that for all (write) tests I've used both the included Lite-On media, as well as what I consider good branded media like TDK and Kodak. And I haven't even overdone it on the writing speed either. I've tried no higher than 12x and the last burn was conducted at 4x. Still, no drive was able to properly read the written disc, not even the writer itself. Also did simulations and tried writing with SMARTburn turned both on and off.

I've also tried to install the Intel Application Accelerator drivers, since the system is based around a supported Intel chipset (i845E).

I feel I've tried everything I can think of (short of returning the drives, which is now next on my schedule).

For the sake of completeness, here's a short list of my hardware (everything is run in spec):
motherboard: ASUS P4B533-E rev 1.02 (BIOS v.1004E)
processor: Intel Pentium 4 (Northwood) 1.6GHz in-a-box
graphics card: ASUS V8420/TD Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB DDR RAM with TV-out and DVI-I
sound card: Creative Labs Audigy Player
hard drive: Maxtor D540X 120GB (model 4G120J6) (primary master)
DVD ROM drive: Lite-On LTD-163 (firmware GH5N flashed, original GH5K) (secondary master)
CDRW drive: Lite-On LTR-40125W (firmware WS05 flashed, original WS04) (secondary slave)
floppy drive: ALPS generic disk drive

 

[Kingofcomputer]

My system is winxp pro, both dvd and cd-rw are bought from Dell recently at great price, no problem so far.

Did you buy from Dell?

I'll post update if any problem comes up.

 

[mbf]

No, I bought both Lite-On drives as retail versions (branded boxes incl. software and screws.)
Which is what annoys the hell out of me. I could understand the problems, if I'd bought bulk versions or tried "overclocking" the drives with different/incompatible firmwares. But this is not so. Everything is built and run to specs. And it's not as if I'm using bottom of the barrel components, at least not to my knowledge. By the way I forgot to mention that the computer runs with 768MB Kingston ECC DDR RAM memory, so by definition memory problems should be pretty much out of the question. Finally, I've built *many* rigs in my time. I have years of experience doing so, but I have *never* encountered problems this severe with any components. I really don't know what to think. Maybe I've just been "lucky" enough to get components from a bad production run, or maybe something else entirely is at work. I *have* considered, that maybe the board would be at fault, but why then does the hard drive run without any problems? All drives are using the onboard Intel ICH4 IDE controller. Any suggestions at all?

 

[FatClemenza]

Lite-On and Toshiba

 

[Kingofcomputer]

mbf,

Dell's are retail box version too.

I know one thing for sure - Dell gets Lite-on drives from different source than Newegg.

Do your drives have "www.liteonit.com" sticker on the front bezel?
My Dell's Lite-on dvd and cd-rw both have that.

At least I've found 2 different sources of Lite-on drives:

this one:
www.liteonit.com

America (Including Northern and Latin America)
LITE-ON (USA) Internatioal Inc.
Address: 726 S. HillView Drive, Milpitas, CA95035
Tel: +1-408-935-5353
Fax: +1-408-946-1891

and this one:
www.loeusa.com
Lite-On Enclosure USA Inc.

Los Angeles
Office
20531 Walnut Dr. Sutie B6
Walnut CA 91789
Contact:Mr. Norman Liu
Tel: 909-869-6319 ext. 113
Mail: normanl@loeusa.com

New Jersey
Office
124 Tices Lane #C
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
Contact: Mr. Derek Cheung
Tel: 732-651-7500 ext. 107
Mail: derekc@liteonenclnj.com

 

[mbf]

Kingofcomputer, both my drives are retail drives with the www.liteonit.com.tw sticker on them.

Or, at least they *had* them, since I bought two black fronts to go with them. BTW, I've bought both drives at a local computer store here in Denmark, which I forgot to mention (sorry.)

I have since done some more research on these issues, and over at the forums for www.cdfreaks.com I found some people who are experiencing the same problems as me. As of now, noone seems to have any idea as how to fix the problems though.

Also, a friend of mine bought the same CDRW, and even though he apparently has had no problems burning, he gets the same paging error in his even log too. So it seems this problem isn't as uncommon as I had thought.

Have you been checking your event logs? BTW, both event log errors are periodical in nature. They don't happen every time. The timeout error seemingly happens when no drive on the bus the DVD drive is connected to has been accessed for quite some time (e.g. a couple of hours.) Then, when you put a disc in the DVD drive the error usually (but not always) occurs. Almost seems as if the devices go to sleep, or something like that.

The burn quality, btw, is *not* a periodical issue. Every disc I have checked with Nero CD Speed's ScanDisc feature (except the very first disc) exhibits a nearly identical error pattern; the first 30%-35% of the disc is usually OK, then it goes downhill from there. That is if I check the disc with the CDRW-drive, which makes for the best reader, since it can adjust the laser to the most optimal position. The DVD drive gives me a lot more errors (to the extent that is possible.)

Anyway, this is were I stand. Sorry to have turned this thread into mbf's bitching and moaning forum...

 

[Kingofcomputer]

mbf, wait a moment, you said your sticker is "www.liteonit.com.tw", you sure it has "tw" at the end?

I'll check my log next time.

 

[Earwax]

I've used Plextor burners for the last 3 years and I've burnt a total of 3 coasters. All the coasters were from trying to copy an encrypted disk that CloneCD had trouble with. After I enabled the weak sector amplification option in clonecd, the CD burnt fine. I'd say I've burnt about 150 CDs in the last 3 years, so 3 out of 150 going bad isn't too terrible. I also once bought a drive that wasn't a plextor and it dropped dead after 2 CDs. I can't speak for lite-on, but CD-Freaks did some comparisons between the latest Plextor 40x drive and a lite-on drive in one of their recent reviews. Also, you can get the Plextor 40x IDE for $110 after rebate from newegg.

 

[mbf]

 

[mbf]

Kingofcomputer, yes it's as you said: "www.liteonit.com"

I probably thought of their taiwanese web address (which is an alias of the above.)

As for alternatives, well I'd probably have bought bought a Plextor CDRW and a Toshiba DVDROM, but they're not available in black here. Also, I more or less only read favorable reviews of the Lite-On drives. I *really* hope these just are faulty drives, because I like them otherwise.

 

[shortnugly]

I've always had great luckwith Yamaha CD-RW drives.

It installed flawlessly.

Had all the necessary drivers.

Burns at very decent speed.

Never had a problem reading any copywrite info.

Comes bundled (retail version) with great Nero software.

Lack of problems or headaches ranks HUGE in my book for product considerations. Balanced against great performance, this usually brings it to the top of my list.

Other drives may be blazing in certain aspects but if they're "edgy" or somewhat unstable at other performance areas, then the evaluation of the product is not complete.

Just my experience with Yamahas, for whatever it's worth.