LiteOn DVD writers?

[Carol Haynes]

I have just built a new system (Win 7 Pro with 8Gb memory/Phenom II x4 CPU) and included a LiteOn DVD+-RW DL drive.

I have never had problems with optical drives in recent years with Verbatim x16 DVD+R disks but having set up the system I attempted to do the usual backup (Windows Backup System Image) for quick reinstall if the need arises.

The strange thing is is took 3 DVDs and every time I tried to do it the first two disks burnt perfectly and the third refused to verify with a media error (and the logs showed 'bad block').

Having got through 12 DVDs I gave up - 8 burnt perfectly (the first two each time) and 4 failed (disk 3 in each set).

Anyone got any ideas what could be causing this? I have also burnt CDs with the same drive without any problem.

I can't believe that every third DVD in the batch has a problem (none of the other 25 in the pack have had issues on other systems).

Things I have tried so far are:

1) Upgrade to the latest firmware
2) Run LiteOn's tool that is supposed to optimise writing speeds to ensure good writes (sorry can't remember what it is called).

In the end I have done the backup by plugging in a laptop Samsung external DVD+R and the disks burnt without problem.

Anyone else experienced anything like this with LiteOn drives or do I have a duff one? I have used LiteOn in a number of builds and up until this one they have been fine.

[mouser]

LiteOn DVD drives have always worked perfectly for me.

[cmpm]

Is LiteOn reading the DVD as a DVD or just a CD.
I had one LiteOn DVD that would not recognize DVDs.
It saw them as CDs only, returned it.
Strange I thought....

[fenixproductions]

Two LiteONs in the past behave similar to your description after a while. What was worse: when problems started to appear they all stopped to see original disks (no matter what type it was: data, music or games) BUT all self burned DVDs were read perfectly well.

AFAIK if problems happen, firmware update is worth nothing - it can't fix it.

P.S. Post right in time: my DVD (Samsung this time) suddenly died today

[Carol Haynes]

Sorry about the Samsung!

Got fed up and frustrated and RMAed the drive for a refund. Ordered a Sony BD-RE for my machine and will swap out a known good Sony DVD+RW for the other machine (its for use in the home so its not as though I am cheating anyone).

Off topic aside ...

Really disappointed by the build.

Used:

• Gigabyte GA-880GM-USB3(rev. 3.1) motherboard
• AMD Phenom II x4 965 CPU
• 8Gb Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 memory
• 1Tb WD Caviar Black

The motherboard has integrated Radeon HD4250 graphics with the latest catalyst drivers. The BIOS limits the onboard graphics to a maximum of 512Mb allocated - which is a pity since the mobo supports 16Gb it would have been nice to be able to allocate 1Gb or even 2Gb).

Running Portal 2 on the machine I have had to reduce the resolution by about 30% and drop down all the settings to medium or low. Disappointing.

Its the first time I have used this board (other Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H boards have been much better)! The graphics are really not good for gaming even though it is well above the system requirements.

Portal 2 requirements:
OS: Windows 7 / Vista / XP
Processor: 3.0 GHz P4, Dual Core 2.0 (or higher) or AMD64X2 (or higher)
Memory: 1GB XP / 2GB Vista
Hard Disk Space: At least 7.6 GB of Space
Video: Video card must be 128 MB or more and should be a DirectX 9-compatible with support for Pixel Shader 2.0b (ATI Radeon X800 or higher / NVIDIA GeForce 7600 or higher / Intel HD Graphics 2000 or higher).
Audio: DirectX 9.0c compatible

I am going to try shoving in a PCIe card and switch off onboard VGA.

[J-Mac]

I have 2 Lite-On drives: a Reader and Writer. Replaced the Sony drives that came with this box. The Writer just stopped recognizing blank DVDs. It sees CDs just fine but insists there is no media when I have a blank DVD in it. Been a year and a half since I installed it, and the Sony did the same damn thing after more than two years. Maybe just a short life span?

Jim

[Carol Haynes]

1 day seems a little on the short time even taking into account built in obsolescence!

I genuinely would care if it lasted only 12-18 month because it was very cheap (only about £15).

I still have Plextor and Pioneer drives that are going after more than 5 years (with a fair amount of use).

I used to like Pioneer but they have stopped producing drives for computers. (Having said that Amazon still has loads of them - it was a sales rep from Pioneer Europe that told me they were leaving the computer drive market).

[J-Mac]

I agree and didn't mean it that way, but it does seem like Lite-On has a history of fialing to recognize media after a time. Guess I'll try another brand.

I just hate to swap drives out again now cause I am going to be getting a new computer in the next month or so.

Jim

[40hz]

Like Mouser, I've never had an unusual amount of bad luck with LiteOn drives although IMO the overall build quality has declined somewhat over the last two years for most optical drives. They all seem flimsier and more delicate than they used to feel. I'm sure many manufacturers cut costs by using cheaper mechanical components.

The two best drives I ever owned were dual-layer units manufactured by TDK and Memorex. Both are about 5 years old and still going strong.

FWIW, I never update the firmware on this category of product. Haven't done so ever since I made the mistake of doing it (at the recommendation of Sony) on a couple of drives which were already working fine. Both got extremely flaky after being flashed. I'm sure the update didn't do anything other than add some DRM nonsense because about half the commercial movie DVDs I own, (and which all used to play very nicely on either drive) refused to even load after the update.

And needless to say, you couldn't revert to the previous firmware once you updated it.

Never again.

[cranioscopical]

I'm still running one of the old Pioneer SCSI CD drives quite nicely and several Plextor DVD's. 

FWIW, one system here has two identical LG drives that gave no trouble, so my newest box has a pair of LG's as well. I'm told that W7 has trouble with identical DVD drives (XP sure didn't) so the pair that I now have are very slightly different.