Modern burner refusing 4x speeds on CD-Rs?

I've got an LG DVD burner in both my laptop and desktop, one refuses to burn these Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs at less than 10x and the other at 14x. Pulled out three different CD burners (one a combo drive that can only read DVDs but burn CDs) and they are happy to burn at 4x.

Problem is I also want to verify my burns and not a single one of the three I've tested seems willing to do so. Anyone know why modern burners will refuse to burn at 4x? The media fully supports it, I spent good money on Taiyo Yudens for that reason amongst others.

 

Its a slightly more complicated than just "modern drives dont do 4x!"

I have a number of writers in my machine, lower speed doesn't always equal better burn. Also a writer that writes 1 brand/dye fine will struggle on another. Its all down to writing strategy for that dye/media in that specific firmware. The drive manufacturer will sometimes approve media only at X or Y speed as thats what they got best results on (could be faster than advertised, could be lower).

This is why I have multiple drives on very specific firmware revisions.

This is honestly a more complex issue than I can explain in a forum post, I would recommend heading over to http://club.myce.com/f61/ (formally cdfreaks)

People upload custom firmwares with different strats in them, discuss which firmware/drive combination works best for certain media, how to scan your disks to check the quality of the burn (and which reader/writer is best for this)

 

I just burned a test disc in a Yamaha CRW-F1 today:
http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/yec/products/cdrw/crwf1.asp

Seemed to work just fine despite being 9 years old. After trying another two CD burners it would appear that ImgBurn on that specific machine is refusing to do verification tests. My laptop is happy as a clam to make some attempts.

I had figured it was more complex than simple but so long as I'm not the only one having this problem I at least know it isn't my own personal fault.

Now the Silicon Image 680A IDE controller whose Windows7 drivers incorrectly flashed an updated BIOS to...that was my fault.

 

My modern drives write at 4x, but I have specifically matched up media with drive and firmware revision for best results. Hence 3 different drives for writing and 1 for reading (to test burn quality when I get a new batch of disks).

 

Older drives dont have writing strats for newer media. Its not as simple as you are making it out to be.

Also, not all drives are the same chipset (however, it is going that way - infact, most drives now are rebadged liteons). You can pick up some good pioneer drives (again, check website above for media quality scans) for around $30 that will write most media extremely well.

There is no reason to spend 500-1000 for a writer under the assumption older is better.

edit:

The pioneer 212/215/216 were all great drives and can be had cheap.

second edit:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PIONEER-DVR...ge_Internal&hash=item1e6686e511#ht_500wt_1202

Great drive, great price. Scans of media on website I previously linked to if you want to investigate a replacement drive. You might want to cross flash to 212L firmware tho as its a little better.

 

Great info.
I have been using a plextor drive for all my 2x or 4x CD burns on JVC/Verbatim [AZO] and MAM-A gold CD-Rs. all have verified and work flawless in my PSX, DC and SS

 

My:

DVR-212L @ 4x and 8x works great with DC/SS/PSX on AZO verbs. Also works great on Taiyo Yuden DVDR too.

DVR-215 - Works good on lower quality media (mostly just used for quickly burning something for one time use).

Optiarc (cant remember model right now) - Does amazing quality burns on dual layer verbs. The above pioneers cope much better with lower quality DL media, but with something decent this burner shines.

Liteon (cant remember model of this right now either) - Sucks as a writer, but is a fantastic reader. This is used for scanning media written on the above drives when I get new batches of disks.


I did a lot of research on this (above site is a great resource) and have done more quality tests than id like to admit

 

This Yamaha I dug out of a closet seems to be extremely high quality, my burns so far are pretty good looking. Also found a "CyberDrive" burner though I have no idea who CyberDrive are. Seems they went out of business sometime in the last decade...

Though my desktop has a sole IDE channel available due to ASUS being cheap. My sole functional Sil680a controller won't allow for any optical drives to function when Windows is fully booted but hangs if I have any jumpers set. No idea what is going on here. Need to get a new SST 39VF010 programmed to fix the other card that matches the reference schematics much closer to see if it fairs any better.

 

Have you actually done quality scans? or just assuming they are OK because they play?

and 39VF010 are cheap, I assume PLCC32? they usually are on cards like that

edit:
http://club.myce.com/f107/post-your-yamaha-crw-f1-cd-r-w-recorder-scsi-ide-scans-here-260830/

proof that its actually a good writer (dependant on good media it likes). However, you want to use software that supports its AMQR feature as it apparently decreases jitter. Nero supports it, no idea if imgburn does.

 

Most of what I'm burning are console backups. 650mb CDs would probably be fine for most of them given few games fully used 700mb.

http://www.yamahamultimedia.com/yec/tech/am_01.asp

As interesting as the AMQR is most of what I burn (90%+) is all data and that technology seems to be geared towards audio.

And yes, its a PLCC32. Shouldn't be too hard to pop off, the board also has the solder pads and silkscreening for the size/shape of an EPROM. The reference schematic on Silicon Image's website lists only 2 types of AMD flash compatible with their design but one of my cards has a 64kb Atmel flash and the other 128kb SST. The latest firmware is 128kb but 64kb of it is padded FF which can be trimmed to fit the smaller flash.

Ooooo and this drive supports something called DiscT@2. Going to have to reinstall XP and find a copy of Nero 5.

 

DiscT@2 is like lightscribe. I wouldnt worry about it much.

 

How about BDC-202BK? Is that any good?

 

I use my old USB Multi DVD Write from LG. It burns at x10 but never have any issue with burned CD-R nor DVD +/-R

 

* Deleting reply * (no longer relevant info)

 

Crw-F1 is a really good drive for sure, among the best for 99min discs, but the Disc T@2 thingy is a gimmick at best, not a reason to get it. I'm glad I got the USB version so I can use it with my laptop.

Also got a cdr400 somewhere, that thing is really old and impossibly sturdy, burns at 4x max.

 

*waits for someone to realize that this thread was necrobumped*

I just burn everything at max/auto on mine. Works every time for me.

 

Where is the facepalm emoticon. This is as close as I can get... grr - necrobumping... Editing my previous post now.