Memorex 52/24/52 CD-RW Quickie Preview

[eliminator]

no clue bud...

[stevem]

@Ian

Could you confirm which MTK chipset is used?

Oops.. thought you were asking whether or not it was using a MTK chipset. Not sure which one.

If you guys still have the unit and feel like removing the bottom cover plate, you'll have the answer. The two big ASICs with MT logos on them are the ones. Of course a pic is worth a thousand words... A possiblity for future reviews?

[coolestnitish]

Elim, you said the drive is using cav for all speeds. P-CAV is better than CAV isnt it? Then why did they get rid of it on speeds like 40x?
Liteon's 48x drive uses 48x (CAV) 40x, 32x, 24x (P-CAV)
16x, 12x, 8x, 4x (CLV). and the difference between the 52x is only of 4x (a couple of seconds faster).
P-CAV being better, when i go out to buy a burner soon, why should I go for the 52x?
Another dumb question (sorry) : What in the world is Half-Height Internal Design which this new LiteON 52x is supposed to have??

Anyone else got any information to help me?

[eliminator]

@Ian

Could you confirm which MTK chipset is used?

Mediatek chipset 6

[stevem]

A joke, right...?:D

[eliminator]

??nope - that's exactly what's shown here...http://liteon.notrix.net/

[Robotnik]

Does Memorex update their fimwares much or even at all? I should be getting one of these soon, and I would prefer to keep it as a Memorex rather than flashing it to a LiteOn, but at the same time, it would be good to have reasonably up-to-date firmware.

[eliminator]

Well, it seems that some pple had flashed it to lite-on, but I'd wait for an original fware to show up on lite-on wsite !

[Robotnik]

and the difference between the 52x is only of 4x (a couple of seconds faster).

Actually, I think it is more like 10 or 15 seconds faster than a 48X drive. Not bad I say! You 48Xers out there, your drives are officially obsolete!

[coolestnitish]

I am thinking of buying a 52x. But the way Lite-on releases burners, its not far before they release a 56x.

[eliminator]

You'll never gonna buy a burner that way...

[coolestnitish]

i will soon, i dont really care if some burner is 10 secs faster.

[stevem]

??nope - that's exactly what's shown here...http://liteon.notrix.net/

It's amusing how you ascribe this as fact. Where do I begin...? Let's just say incompetence & lack of knowledge is easily disseminated by the web...

So no, it's not an MTK 6 chipset. It's a Liteon series 6 drive... The dolts don't even know which chipsets are in use... By their logic, the series 3 Liteon drives would have a series 3 MTK chipset & series 5 Liteon drives a series 5 MTK chipset... The reality is that both Liteon 3 & 5 series drives employ the same MT1508E/MT1516E servo/encoder/decoder chipset...

The Liteon 6 series drives may contain MT1508E in conjunction with the MT1518E IC which includes Rohm BD7902FS driver functionallity. I heard MT1510/12 is for the new combo series drives. Confirmation is what is required. I guess I'll have to do it myself, else wait for an Xbitlabs review...

You should read an article or two on this site...

BTW both of the 6S01/6S02 FW @ the above site were modded by me from the Memorex FW released from this site a number of weeks ago (thanks guys). After passing copies to some people @ cdfreaks, they've appeared on this guy's site, complete with the OEM Memorex tags that I left from the conversion. Both files are identical except revision numbers. It's trivial to change the text strings...

[eliminator]

"..BTW both of the 6S01/6S02 FW @ the above site were modded by me from the Memorex FW .. "

well steve, maybe you should take your comments to liteon.notrix.net and explain things to them, like you did here... or you just let them use your work for free, and spread misinformation too..???

[stevem]

It doesn't matter, eliminator. It's a trivial mod. As long as people aren't mislead. Liteon will release official FW soon.

BTW I addressed the issue in cdfreaks liteon forum. I believe he's a regular. A modicum of research will improve his site's accuracy...

[eliminator]

Right on - I like to wait for the original fware release myself !

[psych0naut]

...just purchased a Memorex 48x24x48 and flashed the firmware with 6WS2.BIN from here. Seemed like a good idea at the time! Seemed to work at first too. System saw the drive as a Lite-On LTR-52246S. But upon reboot WinXP "found" the Lite-On drive and then Core Dumped. This happened every time I rebooted. I booted into safe mode and restored my system to an earlier configuration, prior to the installtion of the Memorex drive thinking that might help. Well, perhaps a little, no more core dumping however Nero InfoTool is unable to see any info about the "LiteOn" drive and it's basically dead. Won't even eject the tray when I push the button. Can I undo my evil deed?

[Harrier]

You need to play with the jumpers or someting..

[psych0naut]

Jumpers are fine. Master on 2nd IDE. I need to find a firmware flash for a Memorex 48MAXX 2448AJ. Then I can reset it. Anyone know where I can find that firmware?

[cfitz]

http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/f ... r/cdrf.htm doesn't yet have 48MAXX (they do have 40MAXX), but they do seem to have a good selection and it might not be long until they post 48MAXX firmware. (disclaimer - I've never actually downloaded anything from this site).

I think Harrier was not referring to the master/slave/csel jumper, but rather to an additional jumper(s) that needs to be set properly to restore a drive from a bad flash. I can't recall where, but I do seem to remember reading something about that somewhere. Sorry I can't be more specific.

cfitz

[psych0naut]

I guess since I just purchased it yesterday the quickest fix is to take it back and tell them its defective and exchange it...

[cfitz]

I guess since I just purchased it yesterday the quickest fix is to take it back and tell them its defective and exchange it...

I suppose. You will have to decide for yourself whether or not that is ethical.

Anyway, as far as those jumpers go, if you look at the picture from Ian's review of the 48x12x48 LiteOn, you will see six pins at the far left, next to the digital audio connector:



These are the ones, I believe, that need to be jumpered properly if there is any chance of restoring a brain-damaged drive.

cfitz

[psych0naut]

Hey cfitz! Thanks for your help. I guess I *could* just try all possible combinations of those jumpers to see what happens. Also, someone on another forum suggested I powerdown the PC and hold the tray eject button while booting as this resets the firmware on some optical devices. Also, it was suggested that I might try MTKFlash although I'm not sure how that works or if it would help. Of course returning the drive and letting them fix it would be the quickest, if least ethical, solution! Thanks again...I'll let you know the outcome...

[psych0naut]

Well...I tried holding the eject button during boot. I tried jumpering those jumpers in various combinations. I even tried jumpering and *then* holding the eject button during boot.....no dice. Took them back for exchange in the end...Thanks again for your help!

[vinnie97]

Mtkflash would've probably provided you w/ the needed solution (and there's a tutorial that explains exactly how to use it). I guess I missed the punch on that one, tho'.

For future reference, mtkflash can be had here along w/ a tutorial: http://liteon.notrix.net/