tips for buying liteon 812 + installation

hello,

done, i'll get a 812S soon, either retail of bulk.
when buying, what should i look at first? any tips**? any special characters in the serial number, saying if it can be upgraded to 832 or no? stock firmware version?
(**as when i got the video card, i didn't look at the ram speed, then later i found it is un-overclockable model ).

then when installing, I have:
- ASUS A7V133 (chipset Via KT133a)
- Windows XP SP1 + Via 4in1 driver v4.43 + VCool.
- Harddisks are on the Promise ultra100 using 80 pin IDE cable (2, each as master on different channel).
- Current CD writer on normal Via IDE channel (as master/single), using a 40-pin IDE cable.

- new DVD writer will replace old one (space problems), so will it go with the 40 pin ide cable? is it enough to be on the standard IDE bus, or better if on the promise ultra 100 bus?

I want also to buy one and want to now which model of 812s can be patched to work as DL recorder

hey sup

as i know of there is no special model or manufacture date or anything like that to look for. However keep in mind that the 812 was not really meant for DL burning. And if you want to be safe you might want to wait off and just get the 832 or whatever.. also anything off of a assemble line will have a certain measure of variance, not too much i would say but diff all drives are not created equal hehhehe // that is to say sometimes you can just get a lemon. (I have had drives last for yrs and ive seen other drives fail in a matter of weeks) but for the most part you should be ok with either the oem or retail version.. as far as will it work on the standard via ide bus with a ide "80pin" cable, it should work just fine (i would use a 80pin cable just because they seem to be better cables imo and there really isnt any price diff.)
good luck
cez

edit: sorry i think i miss read your org. post. i was thinking for some reason you were on a pci promise card. but i see now that you mean the one built in the mobo. i would say it would be better to have it on the ata100 side instead of the ata33 side esp if you want to burn at 8x , thats alot of data to move

If you buy a 812S that's what you will get. Nothing complicated like the differences in GFX cards or anything. Only difference you will find is between is Bulk/Retail and Beige/Black. The drives insides will all be the same.

u only can get a difference with the date of the production.... The experience curve makes some difference...

That's debatable. It doesn't have that big of an effect very often.

Use of ATA-100 controller is unfounded because the drive supports U-DMA/33 only.
Anyway, use of 80-pin IDE cable (even for U-ATA/33 controller & drive) is recommended; because of separate grounding between each line it is more resistant to interference.

---That's debatable. It doesn't have that big of an effect very often.---

it's generally (not always) true in the begin of the production. In the market, they often launch products that are not mature and so some flaw could exists in the first models that are corrected later...
Hopefully, the most of the problem are corrected through firmware updates.
This is true for everything in the market except some high quality (and priced) products that can't have a flaw... Generally it's linked to the number of product that are made and the speed of the market changes.

A good example was the geforce FX series... The first versions were very bad cause they launched their product too early to balance the launch of the ATI ones that where very good....
The second version of the fx are better now, but a lot of customer have a first one....

There are some exceptions, but for the most part it's negligible. Unless of course there is a known flaw, but I haven't heard anything suggesting that is the case with any date of 812S drives. Unless perhaps you have heard something I don't know about a bad month. If not, then it's nothing that mcbyte has to worry about.

indeed, you're true...
for the 812, i've heard nothing bad. Until now...
Mine is working perfectly (march 2004) for the production month...