The (new) Official PC building thread!

Lol in the same way hitler and stalin are filtered in the chat lobby for C&C games?

Russ: Nice, if they're cheap in the UK I may pick up one or two after I've sold one of my 3870s... Now my fileserver finally has gigabit networking and I've run out of storage space, some high speed HDDs are needed!

 

e_jones, theo hit the nail right on the head, I have always found a great advantage in having both a rom and a writer for all reasons theo stated, if you burn a lot its much more convient to place your disc in the rom and the read will carry over to the burner for writing without creating extra steps, also why use your writer as a reader, use it just for writing, less wear and tear.

 

boozer,
Go here and d/l the latest f/w for the 20A1S. Should be labeled "EOHT III", see if that helps anything.

e_jones,
You can use 2 different applications and burn 2 dvd's at the same time but I don't recommend it. I'm from the old school and still feel that you should leave your puter alone while it's doing it's thing. BUT I've used Nero to burn with multiple drives before (from 2 to 4 at a time) and it works pretty darn good I must say. Of course all the same image and if you use that application the drives find a "compatible" speed and they ALL use that speed.

ON to your other question. I would choose the Philips... BECAUSE of 2 reasons.... it's the least expensive and you can "flash" it to a Lite-On LH-20A1P or DH-20A4P and back and forth again. lol. It's fun but be aware if you make a mistake you could LOOSE your drive, BUT for $28 delivered it wouldn't be a BIG loss. ;O

ON the SONY's.... they are Lite-On's!!!! NOT true Optiarc/NEC drives...... well the link you provided (btw you linked to 6 drives) One is a DH-20A3P and the other is a DH-20A3H (lightscribe tech).... You can flash them as well. I have one of the Sony AD-7190's and flashed it to a DH-20A3P and it does ok but the f/w isn't to maturation yet. They are close BUT NOT perfect yet.

hth.......

.....gm

 

greensman,

That's kind of misleading! There are sonys with the Sony Brand name, but the Sony/NEC/Optiarcs are true Optiarcs! Sony is also going true Optiarcs for everything after their LiteOn contract runs out! That's why they financed Optiarcs expansion! Sony even wanted to buy out NEC's contract, but NEC was smarter than that! LOL!!

The LiteOns I was getting a year and a half or more ago, were far better than the last three I bought. That's what made me start to look for another brand. First I tried LG, and they weren't bad, but turned out to not be too durable! Somewhat cheaply made too! As far as the Philips drives go, you would think that they would be the best drives available, given the fact that they were the ones, along with Magnavox that invented them in the first place! Their Laser Disc Technology goes all the way back to the early 80s!

I'll stick with what's been very successful for me this past year or so, the Optiarcs for the burners and the Asus fo the DVD Rom drives. I don't really like the looseness of the tray mechanism on the Asus, but they track far better than anything else I've ever used. I've managed to save a couple of DVDs and CDs that wouldn't play on anything else, making an ISO of them and then burning a new disk from the ISO.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Then again you would think Atari would be winning the console wars, but it's not. People need to move forward, some companies can't keep up.

GM, thanks I'll try that. I don't think it will solve the sound problem though. BTW I got a big list of files, which one do I run?

 

so has anyone/is anyone bought/or is planning to buy, the 3870x2?

or are ppl waiting got the 9800gx2?

 

Well for me the 3870X2 is far too expensive. I may have bought two 3870s but I intended to sell one of them, and to be honest I've not been entirely satisfied by either, so I may sell both and buy an HIS version.

 

Not a lot of people on here are willing to spend 450+ dollars on GFX card. I dunno, maybe you should try some hardcore video gaming forums for feedback?


Did you see the 3870X2 with the four display ports? That would be kick ass.

 

Hmm. I think I'm selling the Powercolor HD3870. The Sapphire card barely overclocks at all before giving serious rendering errors, but it does run stable (even if it hurts my ears). The powercolor on the other hand whilst having a much better cooler, keeps getting stuck in 2D mode and misrendering menu screens - a shame, since it overclocks brilliantly. Since the Sapphire card's the one with the retail warranty though, that's the one I'll be using methinks.

 

e_jones,

Ive burned two different DVD about seven times now... no real advantage in it, out of the seven times one where decoded allready and went smooth- the rest slowed my machine down, even w/ the a dual CPU one DVD got more attention. I used CloneDVD2 and 1clickDVDpro5

 

"fbl-eos-eoht" <<< try that one first.

I'm a little vague on what you're saying Russ. Maybe I should add that the DVDRW drives that e_jones linked for questions.... the Sony's there are Lite-On's..... anyway.... Check this pic out.... linky It says Sony NEC Optiarc Model No. AD-7190A and this is a confirmed Lite-On product. I don't mean to argue at all but the facts are as stated.

Hope I made some sense there.

....gm

 

herrick, when you say no real advantage in it do you mean I would produce the two different disks faster if I did them one at a time? As oppose to twenty minutes for both?

 

0 greensman,

Now I want to rip my drive out and check it... ah,ah,

 

Hmmm... OK let me try and lay this out...you can never count on a 20 min. process do to the fact not all DVD files are laid out the same. I mean I have had to compress a 1.5 hr. DVD to a 4.7 [and still had artifacts in moveie] disk and turned around and did 3.0 [king kong] to a 4.7 and be flawless...dont figure...anyways like I stated one out of seven [the two were all ready decoded] I did in about 15 min. the others one would finish in a good time and the other would lag- so in short I did not save time...

I multitask and doing two at a time and still do my thing really slowed my machine down, granted my machine is not the fastest around and is considered average.

by doing one at a time over all has been more profitable to me and multitasking and producing a good quality DVD.

My average time reading and writing is 14-17 min. when I use all four drives with the same movie it is flawless and no slow down speed and plus it sounds really cool...ah,ah, I just a big kid

0 ya... please forgive me of my type 0s...I splite my screens and doing as always a bunch of stuff at once... it will get worse when I add two more screens

 

well i have 2 lite-on's 16x and a 18x and i dont think either is loud. the 16x i dont hear it at all. the 18x it has a little hum to it when in the transcodeing part, but nothing that i would call loud. my cpu fan is louder than the drives.and thats not to loud either.

 

All the DVD drives I've ever owned have been by far the noisiest components in my PC, even before I cared about PC noise or customised them to be quiet...

 

So far my drive seems quieter after the flash. I haven't really used it all that much so I'll get back to you after I do some burning.

 

Yo sam, this may be of interest to you,





Driver support lacking?

 

This is the one I'd recomend
Sony NEC Optiarc Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM IDE 20X DVD±R DVD Burner - OEM
I've only owned it for about 6 weeks..So far its been a superior Burner over my NEC, TEAC, PLEXTOR, BENQ, Don't misunderstand these are all excellent burners..But law of averages sat U a bad burn occasionally
But I average about 10 burns per day, so far not a flawed Disc..Whera as with the others I'd end up with at least 1 in 50.
Now I just could be lucky with the Media I use.I only use Tys & Ritek Ridata
Now for the difference U pay for a DVD Drive over a Writer..I suggest U have to writers..Two of anything is better then one especialy if one goes out..IT HAPPENS some times,usually without notice

 

rick if you could provide a link to the drive you recommend that would clear things up.

And on having 1 burner and 1 DVD-ROM drive or multiple burners that's really personal preference. I have 4 burners in one machine and 5 in another but some would say I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to burners. hehehe. Rob you shuuushshhhh!!!!!

.....gm

btw anyone need a burner....... NOT.... Mwuahahahahahahahahaha!!!