Hi guys,
Just updated my Pioneer 109 burner for a 1650. Its brand new…current firmware is BCDC…
Are there some “must-do” steps to getting the best performance out of it? I guess what I mean is with my old pioneer 109, I had to cross flash it to a A09XL and also use the quiet drive utility to remove read limiter…is the Benq in the same boat?
Thanks…
Must-Do?
It depends on your needs. But first i’d install Qsuite. There you’ve various settings to play with like SolidBurn, Overspeed etc.
Another little nice tool is MCSE. For an overview what you can do with it have a look at here http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=124905
Also there’s a new firmware BCHC out, it’s on your own if you’d like to test it.
Oh and for some reason its coming up as the secondary slave and UDMA 2, whereas Im pretty sure my Pio was Primary and UDMA 4…??
Benq is UDMA2!!! Unless you changed the setting at the back (cble select, Master, Slave) there is absolutly no way i can changed from Master to Slave!!! Make sure the jumper of your new drive is set to Master (if you want to remain in Master)!!!
The 1650 is in udma2 and it doesn’t really matter if you hook it up as slave or master.
isn’t udma4 faster than udma2?
Yes, but drives should support it if you’d like to have udma4 and also a 80 wires cable.
udma2 33,3 MBytes/s, udma4 66,7 MBytes/s.
So did I make a mistake changing my Pioneer for the BenQ?
Personally i think not so, i guess you’ll be happy with this drive. Absolutely no mistake.
Maybe some other 1650 users could confirm this too. 
Yep, even though I have both a pioneer 111 and 1650, they are both pretty close when it comes to burning good (single layer) quality dvd media. 
Do you mean yep I made a mistake? I had a 109 Pioneer…
You definately haven’t made a mistake! 
As [B]rapid fire[/B] says, difference between UDMA-2 and UDMA-4 in internal burners is not a concern. 16X DVD burning/reading is only 22.1MB/second, so either DMA mode will do.
You would only benefit significantly from UDMA-4 when using an external case.
As for firmware, I would stick with BCDC or BCFC, I have seen some problems from people using the new BCHC firmware. Further testing is needed before I will perminantly change.
Enjoy your new drive! 
I’m just using it straight out of the box…as in, I haven’t used MCSE or any other tool to modify the default settings of the burner. I have downloaded MCSE but haven’t done anything yet. Not sure if I should. I do a fair bit of DVD ripping, and found it quite easy to remove read speed limiter on the Pio, but not so comfortable with the new BenQ drive…besides, what firmware version would I use with MSCE…given that I don’t want to change from BCDC yet…?
I have found the 1650 to be a fast ripper as standard, and as far as I know it isn’t riplocked. When ripping with DVD Decrypter it reaches 13 X at the edge with SL discs and 11X with DL.
If you want to use MCSE then you can justdownload a fresh copy of BCDC from the BenQ support site. There is an option in MCSE to increase read speed. Load the firmware, check the read speed box, save the firmware, flash then reboot.
You can play around with strategy swapping if you wish but it’s by no means essential, just interesting. Burn quality is amazing as standard. 
EDIT: If you bought an OEM drive without software then also download QSuite 2.1 from the BenQ site to allow you to change SolidBurn/Overspeed/WOPC settings.
I recently got a 1650 as well, the only change i could recommend is that you set SolidBurn to On in Qsuite for known media as well…as its default off. I’m sticking with BCDC for the moment.
What isn’t clear to me is whether using MCSE will void the warranty ?
Why dont you play with cdspeed and see what the Quality scans are like with the 1650 vs. previous DVD-r’s burnt with the pioneer ?
I guess yes.
The 1650 is a fast and efficient ripper out of the box. The burn quality, as the others have mentioned is consistently superb. As long as you are using the drive internally, UDMA2 will pose no problems.
QSuite is a pretty useful tool for modifying certain settings of the drive (except for QScan which I found to be practically useless). I’ve got excellent results with SolidBurn using not so great media. You will not regret your decision!
Which one of these burners is quieter? Which one is better reader? Thanks.