Now that the NEC 3520 is officially out and that it only adds better RW speeds, is it possible to flash our good old NEC 3500 to NEC 3520 through firmware? 
Iām afraid not due to different hardware chipset, therefore itās completely impossible to flash to the newer drive, at the moment I would stick to my trusty NEC ND-3500AG as the beta firmware keeps getting better and better. 
The same questions appear again and again from those who are not willingly or unable to use SEARCH. 
Welcome to forum lordkv 
chef, I think you better provide some liks or other information on this topic, then the answer you just did. You might be a moderator at other forum, but here on CDFreaks we try to help each other out in a friendly and āeducationalā way.
BTW lordkv, our 3500 drives might be mature but in no way old. And from the few tests I have seen, 3520 firmware still needs some polishingā¦
Itās not possible. They have different chips. Take a look at this page:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=11859
āThe drive uses a new NEC D6364 chipset series, making it impossible to convert/update the previous ND-3500A models to this new ND-3520A.ā
I think we can all agree on that. This thread contains a lot of information and there is no need to look any further.
As Dee-27 already posted and warned, we shouldnĆĀ“t even try to flash 3520 firmware onto a 3500 drive.
But the definitive answer if the 3500 ever can be āupgradedā to specifications similar to the ones of 3520 is still a āunknown futureā.
I find this post by Liggy very promisingā¦ 
But donāt expect DVD-R DL writing for the 3500. That will probably be impossible to implement for anyone but NEC.
I donāt think itās easy to force 3500 to write DVD+RW or DVD-RW at higher speed. However DVD-R9 seems imposible right now.
Off-Topic
I bought myself a Philips 1640 todayā¦ it looks sweet!! 
Good point and very often statedā¦ From the responses it appears a few folks enjoy answering the same question over and over againā¦ If you do a search for āSearchā, youāll find chefās comments to be a frequent response even from CDFreakās mods. 
With that said, lordkv, welcome to Freaks.
Regards-
Indeed.
Interestngā¦ hadnāt seen that postā¦ I would not call that promising at all. When you see the words ānew architectureā (I take it that this means a new CPU type and instruction set?) and ādifferent compilerā you know that it really is 100% impossible for all practical intents and purposes.
Interestngā¦ hadnāt seen that postā¦ I would not call that promising at all. When you see the words ānew architectureā and ādifferent compilerā you know that it really is 100% impossible.
Woow, what do I se back from work. This thread is getting some substance. 
BTW pcdoc, not all mods anwering with word āsearchā as you can see.
I am sorry that I did not read the previous posts and asked the question. I am greatful to all the people who have replied. I recently bought NEC 3500A and just had this query. Like it is posted I guess I have a lot to learn about the forum. Anyway thanks guys your positive criticism will help me in the near future
Really, what does it matter if threads get repeated? I would encourage people to just go ahead and ask if they have a question. By re-asking questions we get more up-to-date info and input from people who might not have been on CD Freaks at the time of the original thread. Obviously, as someone else mentioned, there are plenty of people on this forum that like to answer questions whether theyāve been asked before or not. If you donāt feel like answering, then just ignore the thread instead of using the āsearchā response. Everyone already knows that that feature exists.
Well they certainly use a different CPU, but Liggyās point would seem to be that the Write Strategy record tables share similarities. This might be important moving forward as NEC adds new MID codes because they could be back ported to 3500 firmware. Of course the more unique Write Strategy records you have, the more chance you have that one closely matches an unsupported MID. Time will tell.
Back porting the new features of the 3520 to the 3500, while desirable, is improbable.
Brother Vlad