by cfitz on Sun Feb 02, 2003 1:12 am
It doesn't sound like perfect behavior if I follow your description closely. On the other hand, it doesn't sound like dreadful behavior either.
Since the drive uses CAV reading, it should be able to extract the data in a smoothly increasing rate. The behavior you describe leads me to suspect that the drive begins to have some trouble reading the data at the outer edges of the disc (where reading is most difficult due to the higher speed and vibration), and slows down to compensate. Then it speeds up again as it successfully reads data until it runs into problems again at which point it slows again.
This is perfectly normal and proper behavior when a drive runs into trouble reading a disc, and does not indicate that your drive is defective in and of itself. I would try a number of different discs, both pressed and CD-R, to see if it behaves the same for all discs or only on certain harder to read discs. It it does it on every disc, your drive might have a problem. But Benq drives, in my experience, aren't the highest quality, so what you are seeing may be typical.
Make sure that your discs are perfectly clean and free of finger-prints, scratches, etc. If a disc is dirty or damaged then it would obviously cause the drive trouble while reading.
cfitz
