Firmware DOWN-Grade?

by **glock20rocks** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:21 am

Since the media-compatiblity with the Lite-On 48125W sucks you-know-what, and the 40125W isn't as picky, is it possible to downgrade the firmware to the 40x's? Or is the orginal 48x firmware not as picky?

I have a 48125W that's not being used right now (I got feed up with it and got a Plextor), and have a friend who wants a new burner. I would not feel right about giving him the drive as-is...

Oh, I've got Flash-Fix and the VS09 firmware for the 40x. The 48x has the VS08 firmware.

by **dhc014** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 2:39 am

It will work, but I don't think it's a good idea. Let your friend mess with it if he has problems.

by **glock20rocks** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:22 pm

Why's it a bad idea? He's not very computer-literate, so I don't want him to have to deal with any problems. Would the orginal VS06 firmware be better?

by **hoxlund** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 9:46 pm

ive never had a single problem with my VS08 LTR-48125W, course i buy the TY 48x, i always buy the best media

by **glock20rocks** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 10:39 pm

hoxlund, I've tried Fuji 48x rated discs (which are TY's), and they produce are large number of damaged spots when burned at that speed, plus the drives burn speed ALWAYS drops off at 85% or so. The Fuji 24x discs would burn 100% perfectly at 40x, no errors. I got sick of 40x-only burning at switched to a Plextor 48x24x48 drive, and haven't had any media problems since.

by **hoxlund** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 10:50 pm

well i wish i could post my pics of my burn results, i just finished burning LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring, and 100% accurate scan disc

heres my burn test results: Memorex 48x TY kind

Nero CD Speed Test results

General Information

Operating System Windows ME
Drive LITE-ON LTR-48125W
Firmware Version VS08
Serial Number
Disc Blank
Capacity 79:59.72

Transfer Rate

Start 22.11x
End 48.59x
Average 36.96x
Type CAV

by **glock20rocks** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 11:02 pm

hoxlund, I believe you, but I've just not had good luck with this drive for some reason. The only disc I've got it to burn at 48x and pass the ScanDisk was a Memorex TY 40x rated disc, and I had to turn SmartBurn off. HOWEVER, the disk had TONS of damaged spots on it when I ran a CD Quality check on it. After trying a bunch of different discs, I just gave up. Heck, when it burned the PNY 48x rated discs at 8x, it had unreadable spots on it! But those are CMC's, so kinda to be expected, I guess. My friend has a 40x Lite-On and has never had any media problems, except with those same PNY discs.

by **hoxlund** on Sat Jan 18, 2003 11:47 pm

in my experiance having a lot of resources used up creates bad discs, also having your hard drives fragmented hurts it too

so what i do is defrag a lot, and do a fresh windows restart before i burn anything, and try not to have a lot of things running in the background at the same time, also maybe try upgrading the firmware again to VS08

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 12:16 am

I'll try re-flashing to VS08. I keep all my drives defragged, and always run a frag. check before burning. The only programs running while the CD's being burned are Norton Antivirus and ZoneAlarm. I got the system fairly well tweaked, with as many unneeded services disabled as I can.

It's just the burn quality is fairly erratic. Maybe it's a bum drive ?

by **KCK** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 1:24 am

I'm just curious: Are you sure that Norton Antivirus is not scanning your data files when you are burning them to a CD?

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 3:11 am

Maybe; but I don't see how it would affect anything. The buffer-under protection never kicks in, the buffers are always 95%+ full.

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:33 am

Flashed the drive to the 40125W, VS09 firmware.
Burned a TDK 16x-Rated disc (CMC) at 40x w/o errors. With 48125W/VS08 firmware, could only burn at 32x w/o errors. HOWEVER, around 92% (38.5x), the drive dropped to 32x for the rest of the burn. Not bad for a (very) old CMC disc (bought when 16x drives where the fastest out), and better than before!

Unfortuanetly, I don't have many other CD-R's to test with. When I dig some up, I'll post the results...but, looks alot better than before! Yippie!

The CD-Speed test started at 8x, jumped to 16x at 6min, 24x at 12min, then speed up fairly smoothly and ended up at 49.6x, a bit faster than the old firmware, but not enough of a difference to notice. The speed graph shows the same weird, evenally spaced speed dips that the drive showed before, too. Instead of a smooth arc, there are minor dips in the speed, getting bigger (slower) further into the disc. Did it before, and is still doing it. Don't know why. I'd post the pic, but (and I'm ashamed to admit this :oops:

), I don't know how.

So: Experiment successful, one fix CD burner that doesn't appear to be spitting out as much crap. I will withhold final judgement until I can test it more discs, though (like, oh, TY's). The quality of those old TDK/CMC's still impresses me. They burn faster/better than the new 48x rated discs. Go figure...[/img]

by **dhc014** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:41 am

Where did you get "VS09"? For a 40125W? Do you mean "WS09"?

by **cfitz** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 11:28 am

glock20rocks wrote:I'd post the pic, but (and I'm ashamed to admit this ), I don't know how.

Don't be ashamed. Instead, ask how.

First, you need a web server to which you can upload pictures. If you don't have that, then you can't post pictures here. Assuming you have one, do the following:

1. Capture the screen. Either use a graphics program that has a screen capture feature, or press Ctrl-Print Screen to copy the screen to the clipboard and then paste it into Windows Paint.

2. Trim out the unnecessary areas of the screen capture, and save the file. If you are using Windows Paint, your best bet is to save as .gif format, and just live with the ugly color substitutions it makes. If you have a better graphics program, save as .png format.

3. FTP the file to your web server.

4. Paste the URL into your post, surrounded by the image tags. It will look something like this (with your actual URL substituted for this sample, of course):

Code: Select all: [img]http://www.yourwebserver.com/pic_dir/screen_shot.gif[/img]

That's all there is to it. The picture will show up where you placed the image tags.

I'm interested in seeing these dips of which you speak.

cfitz

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 2:24 pm

How do I post a pic here? I don't have a picture server

Got the pic ready, though

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:15 pm

Ok, here's the pic:

On a side note, COMCAST SUCKS.
Ok, I feel a little better...

by **hoxlund** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:28 pm

that certainly is a weird graph, those dips are very weird

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:36 pm

hoxlund wrote:that certainly is a weird graph, those dips are very weird

Yup...and they're in every test with every CD I've ever tested with this drive, no matter what firmware it has. Most of the Fuji/TY discs start out reading faster than that, and a bit less erratically at the begining, but all have those dips. They don't show up on my Plextor. I tried scanning the discs with my old TDK 16x10x40 drive, and it showed 75+ Million errors, on EVERY disc. The drive is making some not-good sounds, though, so it's most likely dying.

by **hoxlund** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:38 pm

my suggestion, is to buy a 48x liteon, there less than $50 now on newegg.com

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:41 pm

That IS the 48x liteon! It's a 48125W drive. I'm giving it to my friend, but with the 40125W's firmware, since it seems to be a bit better on the burn quality/media compatiblity part. I've replaced the drive with a Plextor 48x24x48 drive, which, while a bit slower, is much better overall.

by **hoxlund** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 5:01 pm

but the plextor can't burn as many copy protected cds as lite-on, which can do everything

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 5:08 pm

Ture, but the only CD I'd like a copy of that I can't copy (with the LiteOn!) is UT2K3. Those games are expensive, and I don't want the game CD messed up.

by **hoxlund** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 5:10 pm

ahha, UT2K3, NOLF 2, Warcraft 3, they all use the same copy protection

by **glock20rocks** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 5:17 pm

Ick...warcraft...don't know about NOLF2. My Lite-On can't copy UT2K3, even with Clony XXL. I DO know what my next burner is gonna be: A Sony DRU-500AX.

Right now I've got about 120+ CD's worth of data sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to go buy blank cd's. A DVD burner seems a much better idea at this point, even if the discs are "only" 4.38 GB. I need a blu-ray 20GB/disc burner ASAP...

I may get a 52x Lite-On to act as a primary CD reader in my system. I do love how fast eh Litey's are...I'll figure it all out when I build a new system this summer. Right now, I've got some big, powerful new toys to go buy

I *do not* have anything against Lite-On's in general...just the 48125W.

by **cfitz** on Sun Jan 19, 2003 9:21 pm

glock20rocks wrote:Ok, here's the pic:

If your drive has been doing that since the day you bought it, then I would say it has been defective since the day you bought it. That just isn't normal behavior.

glock20rocks wrote:On a side note, COMCAST SUCKS.
Ok, I feel a little better...

Yes, I've been having trouble with my account all day today, and right now I can't see the picture you posted nor any of my own. Oh well, maybe they will get around to fixing things tomorrow. Anyway, glad to see that you managed to get your pic posted.

cfitz

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