My NEC 2500A just about had it from ripping/burning. The drive was still covered under warranty from Dell so they sent a replacement out to me. When I tool a look, it was a PHILLIPS DVD+/-RW DVD8801 drive with the words BenQ written on the one of the stickers. I did a little research and found that you can crossflash this drive into a BenQ DW1650! Ah, I thought I would never get another BenQ after they got bought out and my DW140 bit the big one...I can use QSuite once again...Can't wait to do some burning with this piece! I don't know if this is normal but the current transfer mode for this drive is rated at Ultra DMA Mode 2. The other BenQ drive I had (DW1640) had the transfer mode at Ultra DMA Mode 4. Any thoughts?
I think it is relative to what IDE channel it is on, or how new your IDE cables are. Something like that.. I did a quick google to check and I think i'm mostly right, but see this http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/modesUDMA-c.html I only scanned it quickly as I'm on a schedule, lol It shouldn't really make a difference, the important thing is that you have DMA on.
I see, thanks for the info. I just got these cable off eBay...rounded IDE claiming to be 40-pin 80-wire Ultra ATA Cables. Maybe not eh? Well I've had no problems with the current set up as I'm getting an average of 98% scans off this drive using Verbs(MCC04). Thanks again for the heads up.
an 80wire cable wont do anything on a 16x DVD drive 40 wire is enough 80wire is for much higher speed devices like IDE HDD where it is possible to improve using an 80wire cable but CD drive no because the 40wire can take the bandwidth. I have 2 phillips drives normal flash and have worked great since 2004.
If you have a newer DVD burner, like a BenQ, Pioneer, Plextor, etc., you want an 80 wire/40 pin ribbon cable. It does make a difference on throughput.