Ever since buying my BenQ 1640 I’ve unfortunately caught onto the hobby of scanning nearly every single DVD I burn (it’s addictive I tell you! 
), and I burn quite a high number of discs, too.
With my burner nearly always burning and scanning, I was wondering, at this rate, how likely will the laser eventually degrade and die? What are you experiences?
Thanks.
burning and scanning cannot hurt your drive. Ripping or reading at high speed is much more armfull although my old 166S has ripped as much as 500 movies and is still well alive!!!
Thanks for the reply.
Anyone else have a drive die on them from excessive scanning/burning/ripping?
Lets face it by the time your BenQ 1640 wears out youll be wanting a new drive anyway so who really cares, the cost of dvd writers is nothing at the moment so i wouldnt worry.
I observed that after 3 dvds written one after another the next is a coaster… could this be due to overheating? The discs aren’t though hot when burning finishes…
theres a good chance. i know my NEC 3520 didnt like the heat… my case temperatures got as high as 45c! and every disc burnt had huge PIF spikes and my drive wouldnt read the disc well in transfer rate tests although playback in my DVD players seemed fine.
its best to let your drive cool down a bit between burns. it might be ok on cooler days, but on hot days, i would let your drive cool down between burns.
But doesn’t the DW1640 have some sort of mechanism to prevent overheating via its ADCS?
im a noob at benq drives, yeah i guess it does, but i myself would let it cool between burns especially on hot days anyway.
It doesn’t prevent overheating, AFAIK there’s no circuitry to shut down or slow down the drive when it gets too hot. What it does is increase the efficiency of the cooling, with measures taken against dust buildup inside the drive. If the cooling of the case is poor it will get hot just like all other components, but to a lesser degree. At least that’s my take on it.
Q.
I find the ACFS vent being blocked by the side of the case, when mounted in the rack.
Yea it seems the ACFS vent is blocked on most cases, they should of heat piped it to the back like a Shuttle case!!
Or bring back the lil fan!!!
The simple fact is that short of electrical or physical abuse, few of us really have a clue as to why our drives fail. Based on the useful life specifications, these drives will last long beyond any point where we still want to use them. My BenQ 1620s died in 3 weeks. My Liteon 812 still works; never burned worth a damn, but it still does after thousands of hours of ripping, scanning, and CD burning.
Given the $50 replacement cost, I long ago gave up trying to modify my useage to prolong the life of a drive. Other than my NEC 3500, I can easily replace any of the drives I use. My advice; use them for anything you want. None of what we normally do is abuse. Oh yah, and keep them cool.
I have similar problem. Check out my thread! And my problem is not heat-related since it’s winter where I live.
Which thread?
the “1640: something was gone wrong with my burner” thread 
Sometimes the Laser Diode burns out because of a heat buildup in the OPU burning some discs which need a high laser power (the really light pink/purple stuff). Multiple consecutive burns on RW/cheap media … day in day out might excabarate the problem. The drive mite be still cool.