I bought this drive yesterday at best buy, its quite nice. My problem is, I cant find firmware for it. Its weird, on sony’s site they have a CRX320E and a CRX320EE.
I found firmware for the CRX320E but not for this EE. Can anyone help? Ne1 else have this drive?
If the naming scheme is anything like the naming scheme that Sony used for it’s 230E series CD-writers, then it should work something like this: if the drive has the same specs, then it will keep the same model number (320E), but each revision of the drive’s hardware will add a letter to the end. I’m pretty sure that this is what they’re doing for the 320E series, in which case…
320E: original version (based on the LiteOn 2K combo)
320ED: second version
320EE: third version
I’m going to guess that the ED corresponds to the LiteOn 5K and that the EE corresponds to the 6K combo, but I’m not sure about this! It could be that the ED is 6K and that the EE is 6V, or it could be that I’m totally wrong about this!
Since nobody really knows much about this drive at the moment, you can help us help you by doing the following:
1: Download LtnFW ( http://dhc014.rpc1.org/howto.htm#LtnFW )
2: Run it and use it to make a backup of your drive’s firmware.
3: Zip up this backup file and e-mail it to me ( http://codeguys.rpc1.org/contact.html )
Once we receive a copy of the drive’s firmware, we will be able to know more about this drive.
will do. its weird, on the retail box it says CRX320AE but when you plug the drive in its recognized as CRX320EE.
The users manual says its the CRX320AE but it says in the manual the drive will be seen as CRX320EE. ok.
so i go to sonys sites and they have a firmware for CRX320AE, so i download it, and no its for CRX320E and says not compatible with my drive.
ill dump the firmware for u now.
ok, the firmware has been sent.
Cool, thanks.
Okay, my initial guess was correct: the CRX320EE is indeed based on the LiteOn SOHC-5236K (so that’d mean that the CRX320ED is probably based on the SOHC-5235K, but that’s another story).
1/ Your firmware, RYK1, is dated 25 Feb 2005 (half a year old). There are no known official Sony firmwares to update your drive with (no RYK2, etc.), since your dump of RYK1 is the first RYKx firmware I’ve seen. 
2/ You can update your drive with a SOHC-5236K firmware, however (though this will technically void your warranty). The latest one available, RK07, is dated 31 May 2005, so it’s a few months newer. That having been said, CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drives are a mature technology, so it is unlikely that there will be anything radically changed or improved between RYK1 and RK07. If your drive is working okay at the moment, it is unlikely that you will see much improvement if you flashed to RK07.
3/ If you’re looking for region-free, you can use LtnRPC to disable the drive’s region protection and/or reset the number of changes left.
4/ If you want to increase your drive’s DVD rip speeds (this will technically void your warranty), you can flash your drive with a firmware patched by OmniPatcher.
i downloaded 5236K.RK07.stock.exe this will change the drive to a lite-on drive as well in info?
Yes, it will change your drive’s identification to “LITE-ON COMBO SOHC-5236K”. If you wish to use RK07 and still retain the original Sony drive identification, you will have to use OmniPatcher (version 2.4.0 or newer) to patch the drive identification string in 5236K.RK07.stock.exe before flashing it to your drive.
cool. yeah i just startewds playing with omnipatcher. let me ask you tho, regardless of what I set the I.D. to, this firmware should disasble sonys turbo “feature” of holding nown the reset button right?
Yep.
hmmmm, so i wonder if the original 320e can be flashed with 5236K.RK07.stock.exe, i would imagine not
this worked great.
if anyone wants this drive, best buy had it yesterday for 49.99 with a 20$ rebate mail in making it 29.99 then on sonys site there is a 20$ main in rebate so this drive is actually 9.99$ after 2 mail in rebates.
after flashing it as lite on the 52x is always on and i noticed the led is steady when burning, doesnt flash.
i also used omnipatcher and maxed out the read speeds on all dvd media, i hope thats what you are supposed to do.
No, you can’t. The original 320E (without an extra “D” or “E” at the end) is a 5232K. Different hardware from the 5235K or the 5236K. The NK0 firmwares shouldn’t be used on the 320EE, and the RK0 firmwares shouldn’t be used on the 320E.
Well, if you find that the speeds that you set are too fast (especially 16x for DVD-ROM/9), then you could reduce the speed and reflash your drive.
Bumping up the read speed is kinda like overclocking a CPU in that not all drives can overspeed the same amount (and it also depends on the physical quality of the discs that you are reading). Some folks can get their drive up faster than others. For the latest LiteOn DVD-writer models, most units should be able to handle the max selectable speed for all media types, but I’ve never stress-tested the latest 5236K combos to see how far you can push them. You might find that you have to turn down DVD-ROM/9 to 14x or 12x. shrug Try it and find out (and let us know, too; I’m curious to know if the 5236K is capable of doing 16x on DVD-ROM/9 media).
Edit: By the way, I’m just curious here; when was your drive manufactured? The sticker on the drive (and sometimes there’s one on the box, too) should say…
i hope someone is still around to help me… but my problem is the same as the OP of this thread… but mine came stock with firmware ryk3… read/write speed 52x buffer size 1536kb (seems oddly low) all this information is from nero infotool… the only site i could find firmware for this drive crx320ee had RYK1… i don’t even know what RYK3 does… i haven’t tested it out and i wouldn’t know how to test it anyway… i would appreciate any help…
Dump (save) the firmware with Ltnfw, and deliver to the codeguys.
It may be based on something closer to RK07 - not sure if any of the tools can reliably date combo firmware, I know I’ve seen DVD-RW firmware “dated”.
For drives that seem to be devoid of “official” firmware releases, rips of the same model delivered with later firmware are a valuable resource.
how long does it take for them to check out my email? haven’t heard anything
anyone there?
