Burner dying?

[majty]

Hi

I have had this SH-S203N for a couple of years now and now the cds I burn seem to be poor.
I have tried different media and also uppgraded to the latest firmware.
Ive tried to understand the numbers I get from Opti drive control in the Quality section but still after reading alot here Im unsure about if I should worry about the numbers.
The discs all burn and verify fine but the cds got issues in both my moms cd player and my dvd player. Plays fine in the SH-S203N also.

Does these numbers tell you guys anything ? Is it time to buy a new DVD burner??

[Arachne]

First off I wouldn’t bother using the Sammy for scanning CD-Rs. Like the LiteOn DVD burners I’ve come across, they’re not much cop for scanning CDs. I wouldn’t trust those results, although I’d reburn the one with the C2 error to be safe.

Although looking again, that C2 spike looks like it could well be just a glitch given how those drives perform at scanning CDs, and that it occurs in the same spot on both CDRs.

As to the CMC MAG. AM3 DVD-R - what speed did you burn this at? I find personally that the MID can vary wildly by brand, and on my burners tend to burn best at 8x.

PIE’s highish but not a bad burn for a CMC MAG. AM3 IMO.

Do you happen to have an NEC/Optiarc drive or a LiteOn CD-RW drive handy? I’d use either of those to scan CDRs. And run a Transfer Rate Test.

[majty]

Wow that was one fast reply!

Well I burned the cds at 16x (cant select lower in my programs) and the DVD at 8x (6,7x is what it always seems to burn at though…)
Doesnt both show C2 errors? Just one more than the other?
Im under the impression that any C2 errors at all is something to fear.

I dont own any other drive than this one, Im thinking about replacing it with a AD-7260S even though they seem to be of low quality (sorry for off topic)

[Arachne]

[QUOTE=majty;2582989]Wow that was one fast reply!

Well I burned the cds at 16x (cant select lower in my programs) and the DVD at 8x (6,7x is what it always seems to burn at though…)
Doesnt both show C2 errors? Just one more than the other?
Im under the impression that any C2 errors at all is something to fear.

I dont own any other drive than this one, Im thinking about replacing it with a AD-7260S even though they seem to be of low quality (sorry for off topic)[/QUOTE]

Hehe, right place right time :D…and with this subject, I suspect there’ll be more opinions to come!

Burn speeds sound good to me

As for the C2 errors, yeah one scan does show more, but the key fact is it’s one single spike in exactly the same place, rather than say at the beginning on one disc and in the middle on the next. I’d expect some variation, expecially since MediaTek drives are more prone to overlooking errors than showing them, especially when scanning CDRs.

But you’re absolutely right, any C2 error is a bad thing - which is why, even though it could be a glitch, I said I’d reburn the discs just to be safe.

I’ve heard good stuff about the 7260S myself - so if someone can confirm it’s got an NEC chipset (I can never remember!), I’d say grab one - but I wouldn’t ditch the Sammy just yet, do you have room for both drives at all?

Best of both worlds.

EDIT: Thanks for confirming the 7260S’s NEC chipset, majty

[majty]

I did a re-scan of the CD burned with the SH-203N with my new 7260S and it showed no C2 and an avg of 7.45 C1.
I made a new copy with the 7260S and its C1 avg was 29 and the total of C1 dropped to almost half (which is a good thing if I understand this correctly).

So my SH-203N maybe isnt dying, but it looks like the 7260S is better for me for atleast that MID disc-type.
I will burn a DVD-R again on the same kind of disc and check if the total errors drops as much there.

Thank you for your input/help Arachne!

PS.The 7260S is ALOT louder than the SH-203N and I thought the SH-203N was the loudest burner ever!

[adict2jane]

It looks to me like the spike in C2 errors occurred very early. I have noticed that this sometimes occurs with various drives at the beginning of a scan. Doing a quick scan after you see these spikes can confirm that they are indeed, an artifact and not real. Your drive is most likely, fine

[Arachne]

[QUOTE=majty;2583474]I did a re-scan of the CD burned with the SH-203N with my new 7260S and it showed no C2 and an avg of 7.45 C1.
I made a new copy with the 7260S and its C1 avg was 29 and the total of C1 dropped to almost half (which is a good thing if I understand this correctly).

So my SH-203N maybe isnt dying, but it looks like the 7260S is better for me for atleast that MID disc-type.
I will burn a DVD-R again on the same kind of disc and check if the total errors drops as much there.

Thank you for your input/help Arachne!

PS.The 7260S is ALOT louder than the SH-203N and I thought the SH-203N was the loudest burner ever![/QUOTE]

Looking good!

I don’t think your 203N is dying either - as I said before, if you have room in your machine I’d keep both installed, they make a good team. I find my NEC-chipset Optiarc is a very good CD burner - jitter seems to be lower, and for audio CDs I always use my Optiarc.

BTW, my Optiarc is loud as well. At least you know it’s doing something.

You’re very welcome BTW, glad to help

@adict2jane - now you mention it, I had one Litey that used to produce a phantom spike at the beginning, when scanning DVD media. I forgot til you mentioned it!

[adict2jane]

[QUOTE=Arachne;2583568]
@adict2jane - now you mention it, I had one Litey that used to produce a phantom spike at the beginning, when scanning DVD media. I forgot til you mentioned it![/QUOTE]

Yeah, my drive is a Liteon 20A4P Firmware 9P59

[Arachne]

[QUOTE=adict2jane;2583604]Yeah, my drive is a Liteon 20A4P Firmware 9P59[/QUOTE]

Mine was a 165P6S - I forget the firmware, it was awhile back. I found running a quick TRT beforehand used to help as well.