Check below for firmwares:

http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=1905

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Ok, tried them all, same thing every time. Also, one of them, the "L" version, said my drive was unsupported.

(in reply to Iggy)

Is there anything else I can do or am I just going to have to send this drive back? It's supposed to be such a great drive but I'm not gonna keep it if its acting up like this.

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Strange, when I burn at 4X, it takes 15 minutes, just like it should, and no long pauses during the burning.

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Although it is not easy, can you set the drive on a different PC just to be sure?

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Nope, don't have another machine to test it on.

(in reply to Iggy)

Is your drive still under warranty? If yes there's nothing to lose getting a new one.

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Well I got it about 11 days ago but I emailed DealSurprise yesterday and still have yet to hear back from them.

(in reply to Iggy)

You know, I'm thinking that I'm going to exchange it for a different drive. I'm afraid of the Benq's now. I switched from an NEC 3500A because of the Benq's supposed reading advantage and I sold my NEC to my brother. I'll probably just send the Benq back and get the NEC 3520. What do you think?

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Are you getting buffer underruns? If so, then the "Seamless Link" buffer underrun protection keeps kicking in and lengthening the write time. I had a similar problem with a CD recorder. It would write fine at 24x, but keep writing coasters and having buffer underruns at 32x. After I installed another HD and defragged everything, the problem went away. Also, I noticed that some background tasks really interfere with cd/dvd writing. Norton AV, if it kicks in, means almost gauranteed coaster, same with almost any P2P app. CPU utilization has nothing to do with it.

Also things to check for:

If your computer is overclocked, keep in mind that the IDE bus can be off specs, and some devices are more tolerant than others. Your HD can be fine while the DVD recorder can be flaky - just about stable enough to write at 4x, but go bonkers at 8x.

The IDE cable - keep it as short as possible. A too long IDE cable can (and I seen this happen many times) give problems.

Inadequate power supply - burners use more power the faster they burn. A power supply just on the edge can give you every single "untraceable" problem in the book. Also, try giving the burner it's own power lead, unshared with anything else.

A friend of mine had a computer that wrote a coaster practically every single time. He tried switching CD writers three or four times, to no avail. The cure? He moved the HD to a different location. His HD (an IBM, I think; or maybe a Quantum - this was a few years ago) vibrated the case so much when seeking, that it kept messing up the CD writers.

What I'm trying to say, is move things around. That sometimes helps.

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Oh - forgot to add.

Try making creating a test disk from Nero CD-DVD speed. I think that with take the HD out of the equation. If it still takes 19 minutes, then it's not the HD.

(in reply to _Xelas_)

My hard drive that I'm burning from is connected through USB2.0. Could that be causing this? It works fine for 4X burns but maybe the USB connection is too slow for anything faster than that???

(in reply to _Xelas_)

Results from Transfer Rate Test
Speed: 7-12 P-CAV (11.55X Avg)
Elapsed Time: 6:46

(in reply to mcastleberg)

Took 18:44 to create a data disc using cd-dvd speed. 3.90X average speed

EDIT
Damnit, sending the drive back looks like a waste of time. All they will do is send the drive back to the manufacturer and replace it with the same exact drive. Thats not going to help me at all because I don't think the drive is defective, I think it just must hate these discs. Hopefully there is some way to solve this.

(in reply to mcastleberg)

quote:

ORIGINAL: mcastleberg

My hard drive that I'm burning from is connected through USB2.0. Could that be causing this? It works fine for 4X burns but maybe the USB connection is too slow for anything faster than that???

That could be very well the cause ... a 19 Min. burn usually indicates that your drive switched back to 2x after some time at 4x. Nevertheless, a stable USB2 connection should enable you to burn at a min. of constant 4x but bad chipsets in the enclosures often limit USB's transfer rate ... and remember that you need either USB2 drivers for your OS or WinXP SP1 for native USB2 support.

Another issue could be that you got some low-quality media with a "stolen" TY identifier ... this has been reported on multiple occasions in the past. The BenQ has a "walking OPC" that will lower the write speed if it detects low-quality media ...

(in reply to mcastleberg)

I have one hard drive on my IDE cable, I'm going to burn a disc off of that and see if it makes a difference, if not, that will rule out my USB enclosure being the problem.

EDIT
Well that accomplished nothing except wasting another 19 minutes of my life. So, my USB hard drives are not the culprit. I'm so screwed.

(in reply to JeanLuc)