Plextor PX-760A Out In Japan (Big Pics)

[Ian]

According to Akiba PC Hotline, the Plextor PX-760A is out in Japan:

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/ho ... x760a.html

Only 15,800 yen ($135US) too.

[Scour]

Hello!

Plextor disappointed me with their last drives, hope this one is better

[dolphinius_rex]

14min for 10x DVD+RDL doesn't seem that fast.... I think some drives are already getting 15min or so with 8x

[frank1]

It looks like YSS has bought 3 of them:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/dvda.htm
So the usual tests by YSS will be coming soon ...




There are also some tests of this PX-760A already published here
[with little translations into english]:
http://dvd-r.jpn.org/PX-760A/index.html

There are also on this wepage detailed photos of the internal boards of both following drives:
PX-760A:
http://dvd-r.jpn.org/PX-760A/board.jpg
PX-755A:
http://dvd-r.jpn.org/PX-755A/board.jpg
Looking carefully at these pics you can see that the "strange wiring" present in the PX-755A has beeen completely removed from the new PX-760A.
For the rest the 2 board look the same (to me at least).
The main chipset seems to be the same in both drives: a Sanyo LC 897496K


So my question is to the experts is:
Why was this wiring which realy looks like "glued on top of the board"
present in the PX-755A ??
Is it in order to prevent:
- the crossflashing 755-->760
- the use of PxScan
- or for some other reason ?

[Ian]

PC Watch also has a few screenshots:

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2006 ... lextor.htm

It looks like they had problems getting the drive to write to DVD+R DL media at 10x.

[dodecahedron]

tsk tsk tsk...
should've adjusted the vertical scale in CDSpeed

[frank1]

YSS has started publishing his tests of the Plextor PX-760A
He has 4 drives !


At the moment there are 9 pages you can access to from this link:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/px760a/px760a_top.htm

For these tests he uses the firmware 1.00 and a mysterious 1.01 (I did not check all graphs !)


And there is a special page
with hardware comparisons between PX-760A and PX-755A:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/px760a/px760a_bunkai.htm[/url]
On this page there are also photos of the PUH's ...



Regarding the boards of both drives the photos YSS links to
show the same thing I posted before:
the strange wiring present in the PX-755A has disappeared fromt he PX-760A:
Board PX-760:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/3232767801/_px760a_ki.jpg
board PX-755:
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/3232767801/px755a_0890_ki.jpg

[frank1]

Could somebody tell us if this other comparison that YSS makes here:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/yss/px760a/px760a_bunkai.htm

between the 2 boards is important or not ??


PX-755A



PX-760A

[frank1]

So my question is to the experts is:
Why was this wiring which realy looks like "glued on top of the board"
present in the PX-755A ??
Is it in order to prevent:
- the crossflashing 755-->760
- the use of PxScan
- or for some other reason ?

Detailed photo of the strange wiring present
on the PX-755A board:

[Dartman]

IF your brave desolder the wires and find out, otherwise boards look the same to me.

[dolphinius_rex]

well, the PX-755 is probably just all the PX-760 units that couldn't work properly at top speed... so I wouldn't recommend pulling the wires out, even if it DOES lead to having a PX-760, the results will probably be bad.

[Dartman]

Probably right, but if it's non destructive you could just resolder them in place if it didn't work out.

[Justin42]

That kind of wiring is somewhat common on 'first runs' of hardware to correct IC layout flaws or the like. (well, by somewhat common, I mean IF a major problem slipped through all the other QA tests and they had a ton they either had to destroy, or manually fix, they will manually fix this way)

I seriously doubt if you did anything to those wires, you'd get anything beyond a non-functional device. Being newer, the 760 just has gotten a 'corrected' board that has the connections properly embedded in the circuitry.

[dolphinius_rex]

Probably right, but if it's non destructive you could just resolder them in place if it didn't work out.

That's a pretty big IF.... and on expensive hardware too!

[Dartman]

Very true, and neither of us own one so we'll probably never get to test the theory. IF it was cheap enough and I had acces I'd give it a shot but as you said expensive gear to be just hacking away at. I dont mind killing something I only paid 40 or 50 for...

[Gen-An]

IF your brave desolder the wires and find out, otherwise boards look the same to me.

thiaNine already tried, and it wasn't pretty: http://dvd-r.jpn.org/PX-760A/index2.html#4

[Dartman]

Yes, but did it come back when he resoldered the wires or did he try? So anyways looks like a bad idea, you know somebody would try it...