1620 does not work with external enclosure!!

I also had no luck with 1620 in an enclosure. Can someone tell me the difference between the 1620 and a EW162I. What would be the benefits?

I didn't tested, but with CVT there is not a check for the version so as to be possible (for sure is possible with the DOS CVT flasher). Is not possible using the Benq EXE file.

The EW-162I is the name Benq gave to the external USB version of the 1620. The firmware is different so may be is optimized for the use of the external enclosure, you can try to flash the EW firmware and see if with that version is working with your enclosure.

Finally got my drive to work in an external enclosure, however the max speed is 12x for DVD (which I can live with).

I had the chance to change the original chipset in my Belkin enclosure to an ALi chipset interface & this seems to work fine (my mate will never work out I have swapped the insides of our cases around as he uses it for a HDD and has seen no difference). The old one would freeze the PC when burning at 2.4x onto a DVD+RW or just plain abort the write.

Burst speed reports 32MB/s but it still refuses to run at 16x write speed but I dont worry, just remember to slow it down before writing.

qwakrz,
You actually get 32MB/s Burst Rates in an external enclosure?
My max on my 3507 Prolific chipset cases with my BenQ's DW 1620 B7P9, are:
Firewire = 21 MB/s
USB 2= 19 MB/s
I can burn at 12X on Firewire, no problem. However if I attempt a 16X burn, I top out at about 15X and then fall back to a lower speed, at about 2.7Gb burned through the burn process. Disc will play OK.
I can also burn 12X on USB.
See attachments:

Just did a quick test with a budget DVD-R disc (The ones this drive cannot write) and got this.

I am woundering if the controller chip is doing some kind of buffering or I just have a very good read speed. Writing I am limited to 12x as 16x produces a red/green flashing light meaning slight buffer under-runs

Never asume anything in life.....

My DVD works fine for reading all discs, writing DVD's but will not write to any CD's while in the enclosure, produces SCSI errors when starting to write

Just my luck.

If anyone can produce a cvt file for the newest external enclosured version of this drive I am willing to give it a try, or if someone can fix the SCSI errors that would be great.

qwakrz,
That's a new one for me! Best I get is 23MB/s using IDE Sec Master.
What happens if you test a regular burned DVD+/-?
dishinit

Just tested an ordinary DVD & it gave me the same results. 40MB/s transfer

WoW! I don't get this?
I do not know enough to confirm your buffer theory, any knowing minds out there?

From what I have read, most people are getting:
19 to 20MB/s = USB = 12X
21 to 22MB/s = 1394-Firewire = 12X
23 to 24MB/s+ = Internal IDE = 16X
Could you post some specifics of your system?
What OS?
What Service Pack?
Anything running in Background?
Processor speed?
MotherBoard?
Ram?
Model & Chipset of External case?

Anyone else getting 30 to 40MB/s burst rate in CDSpeed?
Thanks for your response,
dishinit

Ok, here we go.

BTW I have found a EW162I cvt file on the unofficial firmware page & have now flashed my drive to allow CDR(W) writing however I also have a 2x5.25" firewire enclosure on the way to allow me to build a Disc Burning station so will be flashing back shortly as I prefer to have the internal firmware as it should be updated more frequently. Linky

DVDRW is the DW1620, dated Sept 2004

Enclosure was originally a Belkin USB2 enclosure (Silver & plastic one) however the interface card totally locked up the drive so swapped the card from a friends external USB2 enclosure (also a belkin but older). Anyway the current card has the ALi M5621 chip on it.

The PC is an Advent 7039 laptop, has built in USB2 on the VIA chipset (Not PCI based) & Firewire, AMD 64 3000 CPU, 1GB PC2700 ram, 60GB 7200 HDD. It is running XP Pro with SP2 & all patches, it also has the VIA USB2 patch running (most people dont install it as it says not for XP but the file readme says it improves USB2 transfer speed under XP and I have no problems with it).

Enclosure is connected to the PC via a Belkin USB2 hub (The one that allows USB1 periferals to talk over a common USB2 link to allow full speed).

Hope this helps. Remember however that I CANNOT burn at 16x as it always has buffer underruns even though Nero's buffer is full, hence my thinking about a cache on the USB chip or drivers.

@qwarkz...can post a pic of the interface board of enclosure(aka bridge board ) ..i wan to have a pic of the ALI chipset....

As soon as the new cases arrive i'll take pictures off all the chips and cards for reference.

Total should be

1x Ali USB2 -> IDE (Current external enclosure)
1x Oxford 911 FireWire -> IDE (Dual drive external enclosure)
1x Oxford 911 Firewire / Unknown USB2 -> IDE (External single drive enclosure)

qwakrz,
Thanks for the info.
I installed an Ali PCI USB 2/1394 card in an older computer (overclocked 700 P3 to 933 P3) I disabled onboard USB 1, installed the Ali drivers and did a burst test with my BenQ in a Prolific 3507 case:
USB = 14 MB/s
1394 = 18 MB/s
Not quite sure what is slowing down the burst rates as the same drive and case when hooked to my Toshiba laptop or Dell Desktop get:
USB = 19 MB/s
1394 = 21 MB/s consistantly.
Any comment on the lower burst rates in the 933 P3 and possible fix would be appreciated.
I believe you have answered one major question for me though; EW1621 firmware does not allow 16X external recording, so no sense flashing to this firmware.
If anyone has achieved a 16X external burn, I'd like to hear more about it.
Thanks, dishinit

The PCMCIA card for FireWire/USB2 support operate on the PCI Bus. Bus traffic could be your problem or try a different PCMCIA card with different chipset support...

anyone tried a Initio based case??

Chintu, please don't crosspost in several threads. Eventually people will read your post and answer your question, like I already did under the "Recording Hardware Forum" in the External Enclosures thread.

I am sorry..

Can I delete them somehow?

I flashed my 1620 (B7P9) in the Macally Initio INIC-1430L based enclosure to the 47L9 and found no difference, still bursting at 19 MB/s. No difference in burn time, no difference in quality. I have a few ideas based on what I've seen posted here. Has anyone actually heard factually what is different in this 47L9? I saw people saying it only turns on support for UDMA-3. If so, then your usb/1394 chipset has to support UDMA-3. I find this interesting because as far as I know in the hard drive world UDMA 0,1 and 3 have never been used. They use mode 2 (Ultra-ATA/33), 4 (Ultra-ATA/66), 5 (Ultra-ATA/100), and 6 (Ultra-ATA/133) although some interfaces support all the modes for fallback, some do not, ie they fallback to mode 2 from mode 4. I theorize based on this that some usb/1394 firmwares may not support mode 3 as well and never expected a mode 3 (Ultra-ATA/44) device. So I went in search of some evidence. Reading through the tech papers on the Initio site I found these stats in a document for my INIC-1430L:

* Supports PIO 0-4, DMA 0-2 and UDMA 2,4,5

As I suspected it does not support UDMA modes 0,1,3 or 6 in the bridge chipset, hence no difference with this firmware for me. UDMA-3 and up also requires the 80-pin type cable, which my Macally has, but some enclosures may not, so even people with chipsets that do support UDMA-3 must check that they have a quality cable or it will fall back to mode 2.

This still does not explain my personal bottleneck as UDMA mode 2 should be sufficient to get 16x transfer rates. Now I am wondering about my laptop's 1394 port as its 5+ years old. Toshiba Satellite 2805 using TI OCHI IEEE1394. I have all the latest BIOS, drivers etc. but Toshiba has not updated anything since 2001 for this machine. But I'm pretty sure Santa has a Sager 9860 coming for xmas so I' will be able to test that theory soon, plus test on USB 2.0 with this enclosure.

So far the quest for a sub 6min 16x external burn goes on.

I also had a case with the Initio INIC-1430L ChipSet and I could only get to 19MB/s also. This was on two different LapTops one with intergrated 1394a and the other with a 1384a PCMCIA card.

I now use a Prolific PL-3507 based case and my transfer rate on both LapTops is 24MB/s.

BenQ EW62I Firmware being used...

I have an INITIO 2430L base bridgeboard and the EW1621 firmware does not help to push it any higher. I am getting 21MB/s for B7P9 and 22MB/s for 47L9... not much difference.
In general, I think the BENQ 1620 does not work well with external enclosures.... my Pioneer 108A can do 28MB/s (at least that's what CDSpeed Burst Rate claims) on the same bridgeboard.

If I'm not mistaken the 108 is a UDMA-4 device...
That's why it burst rate is faster...

I've also got a BenQ 1620 Pro DVD - RW/DL Burner (Bulk OEM)

and a

ADI PM-525U2-PCS USB 1.1/2.0 Drive Enclosure

Both bought off new egg.

In Windows XP, It is not recognized in my computer, and shows error code 10, device could not be started looking at "usb mass storage device" properties window.

Seems to recognize the connection, and install the mass storage driver, but no further functionality.

Seems obvious I have the same problem you guys have experienced.

Now I'm going to take this enclosure home and see if my lite-on will work in it.
Wanted to use DL to back up computers.

Not happy.

So in case I'm able to exchange this at new Egg, the only model I find that's similar to what was mentioned as "compatible" in this thread, is linked below...

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...146-017&depa=0
(USB 2.0 only)

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...146-019&depa=0
(combo with FW as well)

I need USB 1.1/2.0 functionality, FW is a bonus but not mandatory.

Any other recommendations?

Would be nice to keep this thread to acceptable compatability information/drivers/firmware, instead of the other performance related topics.

None the less, glad to finally find some info on this.

With my Plumax case, when I had a BenQ DW1620A in it, I couldn't update firmware properly over Firewire. I had to use USB2.0. The BenQ worked marvelously in it though outside of the exception the case kept disconnecting. This was corrected through a firwmare upgrade to the case itself then that went away. Now I have my NEC ND2500A residing it and it's running flawlessly in there. Have done countless burns on the drive thus far and it's working like a champ.

what model Plumax, and what USB 2.0 chipset?

Thanks!!!!!