Severe Problems with Plextor 716A DVD DL burner...

[Sesshy]

I've been having problems with this burner since I took it out of the box. Using it on a fresh Windows XP Pro installation, putting any type of disc in it would cause Windows to lock up until I would eject the disc. I downgraded the firmware from 1.3 (the factory default firmware) to 1.2 and got it to work by re-installing Windows after changing the firmware, but later ran into the same issue. I then tried to upgrade it from the 1.2 firmware to the newly released 1.4 firmware, but the upgrade would not work, and the same problem persisted. I thought there might have been a mobo compatibility issue, so I tried the drive on another computer with the exact same results. I'm considering sending it back to Plextor for an exchange or refund. Anybody got any other thoughts? o.o

[Computer_Commando]

...I'm considering sending it back to Plextor for an exchange or refund. Anybody got any other thoughts?

Do it!!!

[Flame]

Agreed! Send that thing back! They will replace it for you, and then your life will be full of rainbows...    lol

[glb]Flame[/glb]

[Sesshy]

Well, their officiated-sounding support team wrote me back, quite quickly I might add, saying that I need to disable DMA for the IDE interface to allow the firmware to receive the upgrade. So I did so, and whaddya know, it worked! But when I turned the DMA back on and rebooted, I encountered the same problems. @_@ What I ended up doing was turning the DMA off again, and ironically enough, this allows the drive to function. All seemed well (except for the feeling that it wasn't working the way it was supposed to, having to turn DMA off and all <_<) until I decided to burn a DVD-RW using the Plextools software. 50-90% CPU usage the whole way through. @_@ Now, I'm not running a powerhouse here, but my 2.8ghz P4 was plenty to get absolutely no CPU lag when burning with my old CD burner... But I couldn't even smoothly play an MP3 while burning that DVD... Is that normal? Because if it is that's kinda ridiculous. <_< It took me a whole hour to burn that stupid 1x-only DVD-RW. XD Feedback's appreciated, as always. ^^

[gussery]

It is not uncommon to take an hour or more to burn a DVD, especially if you are filling it up.  CDs and DVDs are different technology.  The earlier CD burners used to take an hour to burn too, and they used to consume quite a lot of system resources.

[Sesshy]

Well, yeah, I expected it to take about as long seeing that it's a 1x DVD-RW (I bought these a long time ago) But I really didn't expect it to be such a processor wh0r3. o.o And right now I'm burning a CD, it seems to be burning it in "bursts". <.< It's rather odd. It'll burn a track really fast, and then pause completely for a while, and then go again, and it's making it take forever to burn a CD. Very strange. @_@

[Sesshy]

Okay, it seems like the problem is simply that the drive doesn't function correctly in DMA mode. I have to set it to PIO mode to get it to do anything at all. But, I do know that this is an issue with my drive, because my mobo is DMA 100/66/33 enabled, and both of my hard drives are currently running on Ultra DMA 2. Does anybody have any idea how I can get it to work normally? ;-; Thanks

[Flame]

Send it back! You MIGHT be able to fix it, but it has no guarantee that it will stay working forever... At least you will know that if it comes from the manufacturer, that it is brand new, and without errors... It seems like more of a "safe bet" just to have it replaced...

[glb]Flame[/glb]