NEC ND-3550a Issue scaning has degraded

wingman99 2006-03-19 22:09:36 UTC #1

I just recently purchased a ND -3550a and the scanning has progressively turned worse to the point it won't scan the same disc. I pulled the drive and installed my old one, it scans fine.

Should i replace with the same drive model or what drive would you recommend lasting longer.

chef 2006-03-20 01:15:39 UTC #2

Clean the drive (and discs) if possible, then try again.

frozndevl 2006-03-20 05:52:18 UTC #3

I too have noticed this, perfect read curves but all of a sudden my PIFs are spiking pretty high. I am having difficulty finding info on how to clean my drive, so guidance or direction to a good resource would be great.

chef 2006-03-20 10:12:37 UTC #4

Easiest way would be by using a CD or DVD cleaning disc (only DRY ones).
Also using airspray sometimes helps.

The only proper cleaning way is by opening the drive up and cleaning by using either filtered water or Isopropanol and a q-tip.

wingman99 2006-03-20 19:53:44 UTC #5

That is one thing I'm not going to do is waste my time on cleaning a 10 day old drive

When i remove the drive and send the defective peace of junk back that will take care of all my problems

People have you looked at the NEC form lately can you see 3550a mentiond

chef 2006-03-20 23:55:47 UTC #6

Why are you so lazy then telling that just now??

wingman99 2006-03-23 00:05:18 UTC #7

I'm not lazy this was my third drive from different manufactures that i have been testing to see if will work as advertised. It failed like the others miserably. I have been scouring the forms to find out what is the worst problems people are encountering in scanning and burning CDs and DVDs using clone, clone2, ANYdvd and DVD fab, and using the problems for my testing. This is allot of time consuming testing but well Worth it because I'm finding that one drive can do

My feeling on the ND-3550 A possible production problems or design i have been able to duplicate all the random problems that you can read about in this NEC form

It's possible that the lens was cloudy because my gutfeeling was that the lens was accidentally hitting the disc not a real measurable amount but after several runs with the same new disc speed demonised on several new RW I brought the speed backup with a new ones.

Bonus the discs that 3550A slightly crippled are working full speed on DRU-820A

With all this testing i can now tell from the sound when a drive is struggling with it's task to failure.

My journey is almost over and i have two sweet candidates Sony DRU-820A and the BenQ DW1655

The only problem I'm having is i wanted the BenQ DW1655 with solid burn technology to win so far it's not so solid.

I can use the most expensive and the cheepest media on the market with 820A

people say the 820 is not fast it is deceiving because it's vary quiet and spins slower once you compair it against ND-3550A, DW1655,DRW-1608P2, DUW1616L, fist thing i said was wow

Amazingly the DRU-820a is pulling ahead in allot of real world categories 3-4 more days of rigours testing i hope i have winner.