NEC ND-6650A Issues... Need Some Help Pls

Newbie Forum
#1

For some reason my NEC ND-6650A (Purchased retail at Newegg.com for my old Inspiron 8100) will only burn my DVD-Rs which are rated at 16x (officially OptoDiscR016) at a maximum of 2x. Also my CD-Rs rated at 52x (officially Lead Data) will only burn at a maximum of 8x. Both discs are Digital Media brand. I’m using Nero 6.6 and checked the Bitsettings for my DVD-Rs using Nero CD/DVD Speed to identify them, then MediaCodeSpeedEdit to check the firmware settings. My firmware indeed only rates my 16x DVDs at a max burn speed of 2x.

I’ve opened Nero with no disc in the bay and gone through the motions of creating a project until I get to the final page where you can choose the write speed. For my CDs I have options of 24x, 20x, 16x, and a few more. The point being that Nero recognizes the drives capable speeds correctly. However when I put in one of my 52x rated CDs the write speed turns to 8x and goes grey so I’m unable to change it. The possible DVD write speeds I get when going through the same process (being sure that I have a D5 disc selected and not D9) are only 2.4x, 2x, and 1x. Then when I insert one of my 16x rated DVD-Rs the speed locks on 2x and goes unselectable. This seems to be more of a problem because Nero doesn’t even recognize that my drive is capable of burning a DVD at 8x, 6x, or 4x.

I also have an ND-3500 in my desktop. My 3500 drive is successfully able to burn the same discs at 48x and 16x respectively. I’m going to go get some new media to further test in my 6650 soon.

So my questions are these:
What could be wrong with my Drive/Firmware/Software/Computer to cause my apparent max DVD write speed within Nero to only be 2.4x when it should be 8x?
Why is my drive (via Nero) downgrading well below the maximum burn speeds once I insert media that should easily meet those speeds?
What can I do to try to fix the afore mentioned problems?
And what type of media do you all suggest I buy to test my drive further?

I did a fair bit of reading throughout the forum trying to troubleshoot my problem, but I’m sure I probably overlooked some stuff. So sorry for any newb mistakes I made, and…

Thanks in advance for the help,

J

#2

Welcome to the forum. Your 16X DVDs are newer than the firmware for your 6650 so it cannot tell what it is burning. By default it drops to a slower speed. You will have this problem until you find a newer firmware and upgrade; even then there is no guarantee it will have the 16X discs.

http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/6650/

#3

Thanks for that super fast reply. Maybe you just mistyped but my drive is a 6650A not a 6500. I’m currently running Liggy’s 1.62 Bitsetting Fast firmware. I’m a little confused though. If the firmware doesn’t have coding for my media, then why was I able to load my firmware using MediaCodeSpeedEdit and see that the firmware apparently had it coded for 2x? Also, any idea as to why Nero only recognizes my drive’s max DVD write speeds (with no media in the drive) as 2.4x when it should be 8xSL and 4xDL? Would you recommend I try any other program?

Thanks again,

J

#4

For some reason, NEC has chosen not to write a strat for these discs faster than 2X. Possibly they just ignored them; possibly they just were lazy. Optodiscs are not know at all for quality, but certainly they can turn out a readable burn at faster than 2X.

I would stick to TY or MCC and burn these in the 3500 at 12X in the mean time.

#5

So my main issue still hasn’t been addressed. Why isn’t Nero, or any other program, recognizing my DVD writer’s capability to burn faster than 2.4x? I mean no matter what I do I can’t find anything in my computer’s or drive’s properties that reveals it can burn faster than 2.4x (specifically 8x, 6x, or 4x). So I must have something disabled or enabled that is limiting how fast my computer thinks my drive can burn a DVD or something.

Should I maybe post this in a different forum than the newbie one?

Thanks for the help,

J

#6

Check your drives DMA settings in device manager. Possible your drive stuck in PIO mode. If so remove IDE channel drive is connected to and let windows install default IDE drivers on next startup.

Also upgrade to latest Nero 6.6.x.x version. :slight_smile:

#7

Alright. I checked my DMA settings. Primary IDE channel has two devices both on DMA if available. Device 0 is on mode UDMA 5, and Device 1 is on mode UDMA 2. I’m guessing 0 is my HD and 1 is my DVD drive. My Secondary IDE channel has no devices. I checked it out and discovered that UDMA 2 should support speeds up to 33.3mb/s. If that’s true at max speed I’d be able to burn a 4.7 in about 3 minutes, which is infinitely faster than what I’m getting now. Or I guess that could be in mega bits and then that’d be about 20 minutes which is still a bit faster than I’m getting now.

I maybe should note I had an old CD-RW drive in the bay before I upgraded to my NEC. I’m not sure what the specs were on it. But it would burn CD’s up to 8x and had a max read speed of 24x.

So anyway, what should I do now? My drive still doesn’t show any signs that it is able to burn DVDs faster than 2.4x. And although it won’t burn the CDs I have faster than 8x, it at least shows burning options of up to 24x (which is correct) before I insert the media.

I’m not sure if it is possible to increase the UDMA mode on my DVD writer or not. Or maybe moving it to the Secondary IDE channel would help, but I donno how to do that either. And pinto2, I’m using Nero 7.0.1.4. I’m assuming that’s an upgrade to the 6.6 versions. Or I guess maybe it could have new features built in that could hinder my drive?

If there are other threads I should be reading that have answers to these questions, I’m sorry I haven’t found any, but just gimme a link and I’ll go there.

Thanks a lot for all your help,

J

#8

I checked my DMA settings. Primary IDE channel has two devices both on DMA if available. Device 0 is on mode UDMA 5, and Device 1 is on mode UDMA 2. I’m guessing 0 is my HD and 1 is my DVD drive. My Secondary IDE channel has no devices. I checked it out and discovered that UDMA 2 should support speeds up to 33.3mb/s. If that’s true at max speed I’d be able to burn a 4.7 in about 3 minutes, which is infinitely faster than what I’m getting now.
Good, now we have the basic information. UDMA-2 proves your drive is operating at best possible mode.
But you can’t expect any 3 minutes burns. Your drive is 8x (~11MB/s) max on DVD media, resulting in 13m+ burntime (see attachment).

Get some other 8x rated +R media like Maxell, Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden. Defrag your HDD and try again.

If there are other threads I should be reading that have answers to these questions, I’m sorry I haven’t found any, but just gimme a link and I’ll go there.
NEC forum section will give you a lot to read, particularly this thread

There have been quite many posts about problems with Nero 7.x.x.x lately. I for one ain’t using it because 6. version does everything I want without an issue.
:slight_smile:

MCC_003@004 8x 1.62 13.22 051031 B.png641×532 35.5 KB

#9

For some reason my NEC ND-6650A (Purchased retail at Newegg.com for my old Inspiron 8100) will only burn my DVD-Rs which are rated at 16x (officially OptoDiscR016) at a maximum of 2x…
Sorry, almost forgot your initial question.

NEC ND-6650 with 1.62 firmware will burn this media at 2x max, even if it’s 16x rated… :sad:

This is a limitation by NEC/firmware, not that much we can do about it.
BTW, MCSE will show you all possible burn speeds… :slight_smile:

Burnspeed OptodiscR016 with 6650_1.62.PNG580×584 18.5 KB

#10

Hey pinto2,

First of all thanks a lot for your input and suggestions, I appreciate your help. I’ll go check out that other thread after I post this. However, I just defragged my HD using Perfect Disc 7 yesterday with no apparent change in my DVD writer’s abilities. And by the way, I had already come to realize my firmware’s limitation on my media for a max write speed of 2x.

My real question was actually about why my drives maximum DVD write speed is only reported as 2.4x no matter what settings I have, what program I’m using, or what media I have in the bay.

Of course it should be reported as 8xSL and 4xDL when the media in the bay isn’t a factor. So what in gods name can I do to see those speeds? I mean at this point I’m not even concerned with getting my media to work at those speeds because I know the stuff I have now won’t. But even other media I’ve borrowed from my roommates to test have been locked to a max of 2.4x b/c my computer, or program, or drive itself doesn’t realize it can burn a DVD any faster regardless.

Thanks again for all your help,

J