SHM-165P6S/Sony DW-G120A unreliable CD-writer?

Hi,

I just coastered some TY CD-R (Verbatim Pastell discs). Written at 24x with Sony DW-G120A. The drive is connected via USB (Cypress based enclosure). Then I tried xflashing the drive to SHM-165P6S and experienced no improvement. The only media written quite good were those with Sony MID. Are these drives generally bad or did I just get a bad one?

Thanks for heads up,
Michael

Went back to Sonys firmware and installed MYR3 - my drive came with OEM-fw MYS2. Results are better, but not very impressing:

165P6S - #1
MV96 - All ON
Verbatim CMCMAG 97m26s66f @ x48

- first CD burn/scan with this 165P6S
- MV96 is test firmware: see test FW description: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=172018
- link to MV96 FW: http://zwind.myweb.hinet.net/firmware/MV96WIN.EXE
- have burned about 10 CDs so far, same MID as above, without issues
- maybe try test FW MV96?
- possible bad batch of TY's?

Hi,Looks good, but Litey DVD-drives are not realiable CD-scanners. But even my TRT doesn't look good.
I'll try that. My last action was FW MYR4 (brand new from Sony), but that seems to be worse than MYR3.
I don't think so, the discs work fine in my other drives.

Thanks for heads up!
Michael

But I am rather confused, because I get very different results if I scan the discs with my CD-R and Kprobe:

Ahhh, ok..
- didn't realize LiteOn DVD don't scan CDs optimally
- the only other drive I have that's active is NEC 4550 (which does not read DVDs at higher speeds as well as LiteOn)
- bench and scan below are of CD burned with 165P6S, FW: MV96
- hope the test FW helps.....

Hi,Who knows, what drive gives reliable results? The only thing you can clearly identify, are coasters and degraded discs with lots of C2 errors.
I tried it, but the results are not that, what I expect from premium discs

So I went back to Sony MYR3:
Yuden written @32x
CMC written @40x (max speed offered by Sony FW, unless pressed "overspeed" button)