The (new) Official PC building thread!

How could you go wrong with either? It's more likely the Lite-On will be able to do bit setting if you like doing that. I couldn't find any info as this is a fairly new product. As far as I remember Sony's can't. Both are IDE interface, I recommend using SATA if your motherboard supports it. The advantage is better cooling by eliminating the wide airflow hindering ribbon cables from your PC, easier installation and no Master/Slave jumper settings to change. I suppose it might be faster while reading or maybe burning CDs. Probably not though. Burners are not the best for reading media.

I have the SATA Lite-On version. Mine burns T-Y 8X -R DVDs quietly almost every day at 6X.

I boycott Sony products because they also go out of their way to try and stop copying commercial DVDs with their ARccOS "solution".

http://www.sonydadc.com/opencms/opencms/sites/am/Products_x_Services/New_Technologies/ArccOS.html

 

I'll soon be in the market for a new DVD drive, and it will likely be a S-ATA one. I assume S-ATA drives can't be forced into PIO mode right? If that's true it'll run properly up until the day it's destroyed. I was contemplating a USB DVD drive but I'm not sure I can be bothered to have yet another external device off my PC.
As for the drive itself, I'm looking for something relatively quiet (although this isn't a primary concern), one that will accept any half-decent brand media (I don't exactly go hunting for DVD-Rs or CD-Rs, I usually just buy whatever's got the Verbatim name on it), and one that is capable enough at reading media at some form of decent speed.
Any suggestions?

 

Hi Sam,
DMA/PIO is not an issue with SATA drives.
I read a review in one of my PC magazines and they rated this Samsung as the best on the market, booktyping and litescribe not withstanding.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151153

I've bought two of these and what I mainly notice is very smooth tray operation and relatively quiet operation. I haven't run any of the burned movies through Nero CD/DVD speed analysis yet but they all play fine.
I'm sure someone will recommend Plextor. I just see those as simply spending more for the same results.

 

fasfrank,
The Samsung is a good drive but I had to RMA one for unknown reasons. I couldn't get it to burn DL media of any sort worth a crap (Verbatim or any DL media). There were a few different MID's that it HATED, Ritek being one of them. lol. NOT that Ritek is very good but my other drives did alright with it.

I'll say that the second Samsung SH-S203B is working just fine and burns quickly and accurately.

sam,
There are plenty of good drives out there. I have a few of the SATA DVD-RW drives and maybe my favorite is the LG GSA-H62N. It's smooth and quiet and hasn't had any noticeable problems to mention. I also have a couple of the Sony AW-G170S drives flashed to Optiarc AD-7170S and they are danged good too. I think the f/w makes those "Sony" drives actually. L&D have some great f/w and besides NEC (Optiarc) build good drives.

Couple of pics to see what IMGBURN and the device manager see stuff like.





...gm

 

fasfrank,

Maybe Sony's can't but the NEC/Optiarc 7170-A can and does. I do it all the time! As far as the IDE interface goes, I use round cables and set the jumper to CS. I've used a couple of Sata drives as well, but they don't seem to be any faster!

I've tried Lite-on, Plextor, Benq, Optorite, Emprex and even LG, but I've had the most success with both the NEC/Optiarc and the Asus. They work very well together. I had 2 Lite-on's that must have been Indian as they both sent up smoke signals, The Plextor didn't like being the slave, the quality of both the Benq and Emprex varied too much from drive to drive and the LG looked cheap and was very noisy.

The computer I just completed and am now testing, is a Christmas present from a buddy of mine to his Daughter and it's the last one for 2007, #48! It's the 27th NEC/Optiarc 7170-A I've used this year. They seem to do everything well. My personal one has burned quite a large number of CD's and DVD's with only two Coasters and those were my error, not the drive's! I ignored an error message, said what the hell, and paid the price! LOL!!

Media has never been an issue, but then again I use Ridata 16x media exclusively and burn at 8x for DVD's, and TDK 52x burned at 32x for CD's! As long as the quality remains the same, I'll stick with and recommend the DVD Burner I'm using. Same thing for the Asus E616A2 DVD-Rom. They both seem bullet proof and come at a very reasonable price!

Edit: I noticed someone not liking Ritec. The Ridata F16-001 discs I buy have been flawless so far. I asked DoctY about them and sent him the numbers and have been using them ever since. I used to use the Sony 8x made by T-Y, but I haven't seen them in quite a while! Good quality and very inexpensive when you buy them on sale!


Best Regards,
theone

 

I've had excellent results with both NEC and LG drives in the past, so I 'm keen to try either of those. I found the NEC drive had a very loud 'spin' noise to it, the actual hiss of presumably the disc going round, and the LG made quite a loud high pitched noise when reading or writing, the 'laser' noise if you like, not that I thought lasers made any noise. Not anything unusual, but nonetheless a bit of an annoyance. My grandad's PC has a Samsung drive in it, and while it works, the speed of the disc goes up and down almost arbitrarily when it's being read from. Perhaps this is because its slow Sempron 2400+ CPU can't keep up when installing stuff, but either way that bugs me more than either of the other two issues (although it also incorporated the former).
From my experience there's no 'magic bullet' DVD drive, but from Russ' reviews, I'm tempted by the Optiarc model. It's just a shame NEC drives use the pale Dell black colour rather than the darker shade LG use, the latter match my cases almost perfectly, the NEC less so. Meh, it'll be behind a case door, I wouldn't really care if it was beige!
Thanks for the input guys, much appreciated.

 

I use folded flat cables in most builds...especially on a Office Build or an Encoding Build...when I'm done with them...they are more compact then a round cable...I use Rounds in a quick build or a gaming only computer...
Here is a shot of the inside of a one of my Old Antec Builds...

 

sorry LP, call me different but I will never again use a ribbon cable period. only round for me.

as for bitsetting/booktyping goes, it will only work with dvd+r media. if a person prefers dvd-r, then the bitsetting option should be of no concern. folks should be aware however that compatability with set top dvd players are as follows: dvd+r booktyped dvd-rom are most compatable followed by dvd-r and then dvd+r.

 

Lol Lp is that a coolermaster fan in an Antec case?

 

sammorris,

Yup, it sure is! LOL!! A man after my own heart. I count 5 fans and the one in the PS. Just out of curiosity, what was the CPU in that one?

Best Regards,
Russ

 

It's got a pretty small heatsink on the NB, and none on the southbridge, implying it's an older motherboard, and given the 80mm basic CPU cooler, I'm guessing it's either going to be a P4 or Athlon XP.

 

@Sam
Yes...The stock Antec fans are Horrible...they were Noisy with a lot of premature failures...and they were (4) pin...which would have required adapters for the Fan Controller...

I like the Cooler Master Fans for the price...they offer good air flow 43cfm...at a low 22dbs...I buy them in 10 packs for $1.99 a fan...

Thats probably a 6 year Old Build...35 watt mobile XP 2400...on a Shuttle AN35N M/B...(1)GB of PC-3200 Corsair Value Select...Nvidea 5300 OC 128MB Video Card...(1) 160GB Seagate 7200rpm Drive...Pioneer DVD Burner...Cooler Master Fan Controller...

 

Suppose the 80mm ones must actually be half decent. The 120mm versions didn't seem to impress Russ that much.

 

There are definitely better fans...but for the price they are hard to beat...I pick up the 120mm for $2.99 a (10) pack...I fill every spot with a fan...(4) case fans...(2) P/S fans...then Hook them all up to a Cooler Master Aerogate 4 Fan Controller which I bought in (10) packs for $4.99 a Controller...

 

Man how do you guys get your cables so neat? I have a full tower case and it still looks like a mess!

 

Lp531,

I've got to admit, I do like your workmanship. I just can't tolerate ribbon cables. I thought I was the only neat freak, hence the reason I like modular PSU's.

 

I personally purchased a bag of multi colored, small zipties like this!!!

I dont have pictures but, I just tie the cables together then can find an empty hole or slot on the case somewhere to route and hide the cables.

 

Yes Deadrum the small cables are great. I normally just get mine at WallyWorld in the automotive section or sometimes in the "tool" section. I like the multi-colored neon ones. Brings some "color" to your case. LOL. ;P

.....gm

 

I totally agree. I wasnt trying to endorse that specific website and I didnt purchase mine from there, I was just trying to be graphic with my illustrations and show options.....

Hey I'm thinking of buying a few hard drives and experimenting with raid 0 whenever I figure out what board/CPU combo I'm getting myself in a month or so. Anyone have any bad words about these... http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16822148288

 

hmm I read it, but then there are like 4 other posts about the same topic, that give different details. Some say they are rebranding, the other says they are totally done, and the other says they are just decreasing their production.

I went to the CDFreaks forums to read more about the topic, and apparently Plextor has been rebranding certain drives way before Jan 2007. The last two I bought were the 712A, and 750. I'm really curious to see who is making their recent 800 drives. I was looking to get the 810SA and their portable DVD burner thats powered by the UBS hub.

I mean I'm sure the drives are still higher quality than most, but the details of their rebranding stuff is still a little sketchy to me.

What if I'm paying $80 for a rebranded Lite-On? >:/

No bad words, just thought I'd mention the 500gb WD Caviars are $100 even also at NewEgg, if you didn't already know. Obviously you're going to be looking for performance, but I'm not too sure how the WDs stack up against the Seagate's performance wise.