AOpen CRW5224 Problem

[bbwoolfy]

I just bought the AOpen CRW5224 on the strength of the review @ BCC (http://www.benscustomcases.com/reviews/Aopen5224/) - which incidently is very good.

I've been putting the drive through it's paces - basically repeating all the tests in the review - and I gotta say I'm impressed.

In the read tests, I got better results than the review drive -

31.43x Average, 18.53x Start & 41.47x End @ 40x (Speed Boost Off)

and

39.87x Average, 23.45x Start & 52.68x End @ 52x (Speed Boost On)

- impressive!

Although the access times were 'slightly' slower.

However, when I ran the write test, with Nero CD Speed 2.02, everything went fine - up until around 10secs remaining. When the speed suddenly took a nosedive from about 52.5x down to around 16x! - the rpm also dropped from 11,000 to 3,500. But then the speed picks up again to around 33x - and the rpm to 7,000. Giving me a final time of 2m 35s - as opposed to the 2m 25s in the review! (for an 80min CD-R).

The final results are - 39.41x Avg, 23.41x Start & 33.26x End - in a time of 2m35s.

I've tried this test a few times with the same results.

Also, I do have DMA enabled and the firmware is v1.06. I also disabled any AV, Firewall, utility SW while testing, and don't have any other optical drives in my rig - just one HDD on IDE 0, 0 - and the CRW5224 on IDE 1, 0.

Does anyone have any clues as to why this is happening???

I'm sure if the speed didn't drop off at the end I would get burning times of 2m 25s or less.

[Ian]

It's the drive's write speed control technology at work. If it senses that the media cannot handle those speeds, it will kick it down to an acceptable level. I recommend trying other media.

[bbwoolfy]

Thanks Ian,

I thought it might have something to do with this.

One more thing I wondered about was, in Nero (5.5) when JustLink is activated it reports this in the burn progress window.

Should a message not appear to say JustSpeed is activated?

[CDRecorder]

I have the OEM version of this drive, and I don't see the JustSpeed message. I don't think that it should appear in the Nero window.

[bbwoolfy]

Thnx dude,

I was just curious, thinkin that maybe a message should be appearing for JustSpeed - but now u've put my mind at rest.

[bbwoolfy]

I have the OEM version of this drive,

@CDRecorder

What media would you recommend for writing @ 52x on this drive?

[CDRecorder]

I've been using SpinX 40x media (made by CMC) with it, but I wouldn't recommend that media for long-term storage. Although I haven't tried it with this drive, I would recommend Fuji 48x media.

BTW, I have the firmware version 1.05 from the AOpen web site. I tried 1.07, but the write quality didn't seem as good, and I really don't like that Speed-Boost "feature" that was introduced with version 1.06.