Lite-On SOHW 832S

[Kurgan]

I could cry. I read tons of great reviews, and bought this unit. Got it and installed it today, and spent the entire evening (over 8 hours now) fighting with it. I've got a stack of discs sitting here that are all coasters. I've tried three different brands of media, including the ones that came with it, tried burning at 2x instead of 4x, upgraded the firmware (no probs), eventually downgraded the firmware (saw a thread saying the new firmware was buggy and suggesting we revert, which solved other people's similar probs), checked every setting I could think of and made sure everything was correct, but still am burning coaster after coaster. A dozen discs down the tubes and not a single good burn. "Session Fixation Error" came up a lot, and the drive would often hang up towards the end of the burn, prior to verification (would just sit there doing nothing, the light on, but not move to verify). There were also a few that appeared to burn, but failed verification (I also manually checked them --lots of CRC errors).

At first I thought this might be a problem that occurred during shipping, even though the box was in good shape and the contents nicely packed, but then I saw quite a few posts on the web from others having similar problems. Does anyone have any clues as to whether this can be fixed, or if I should just return the drive? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[ViRaL1]

I can't tell you what's wrong with the drive. But I WILL suggest you stick to RW media until you get it figured out. Are you having problems with movies only, or have you burned bad data discs as well? For those who know a little more about it, posting your firmware version(s ) and the brands of media (might not hurt to use DVDinfo Pro to get the media codes) that you're using as well as what software you're using to burn and what you're using as your source media will save some dialogue.

[tim6661234]

Check your driver is running with DMA enabled (if you need instructions do a search here, I've see it described many times)

I've got the same drive with no problems upto 8 speed

[Kurgan]

Viral:

In my searches on the web, I ran across a lot of other people having this same problem [with this unit] who were using a wide variety of brands of media. The media I've used is: a couple of "in house" brands that were rated at 4x and described as HQ; SKY brand, which I"ve used before with my Pioneer and worked great; and the ones that came with the package from NewEgg. However, the others mentioned used very HQ brands, such as TDK, Memorex, and Ritek. Our mutual problem, despite using so many different brands of media, suggests to me that the problem isn't the media.

As for media type, I neither have, nor can afford to buy, +R or +/-RW discs. I only use -R. It's simply a matter of what I can afford, not a long-term preference or anything (although RW discs tend to be less compatible with devices). -R discs do the job and are less expensive. I spent the last of my cash getting this drive, literally. I've got a couple hundred -R discs sitting here that I got this drive to burn on (my previous drive, a Pioneer 106, has died, so I splurged for this one as a replacement), and the advertisement said it does both, so dangit, I'm gonna hold them to their word. (Chuckle)

I rarely do Video discs. I pretty much burn only data discs. I collect TV shows (fun hobby), and burn all the eps (usually Divx files) as I get them, usually about half a season to a disc. This is incredibly frustrating, because the drive showed up just in time for me to clear space from my full hard drive, and now, since it can't burn anything, I can't make space for the new downloads until I can get this figured out. Driving me bonkers, and I'm gonna miss a ton of stuff if I can't fix this soon. The stock firmware was version 04. I immediately updated it (successfully) to the current VS0Ab, but after having the problems, and finding several posts talking about how the new firmware was screwy and that rolling back to the original version solved this problem for some people, I followed their suggestion and put the original firmware back on it (again, successfully). For software I use Nero, and again, upon seeing several people claim that updating to the most recent version fixed this problem for them, I did that, too, but to no effect. The only change being that the "Book Type" checkbox was no longer visible in the window (next to the speed, just before you begin the burn). No biggie, I don't need that anyway, since it's for +R discs, and I turned the feature off in the preferences, anyway.

I'll check out the program you mentioned, and will post results if I'm able to run it properly.

Tim:

Yes, DMA is on.

Since your drive works so well, I truly wish we had some way of determining if that unit would work here, or if mine would work in your system. Be nice to have a way of narrowing things down that way, so we knew if it was hardware, environmental, or elsewhere that the problem originates from. Curious, but have you been using one type/brand of media, or several? I'd like to know what you've gotten to work, to see if it's something I've tried already, or seen others fail with. That could be very telling, especially if you're using -R discs.

[tim6661234]

Kurgan,

I'll detail as much as I can.

I've got the latest firmware version VS08 I think.


Media used is all -R and +RW.

Verbatims (MMC) 4 speed.
Sony (MMC) 4 speed.
Ritek Datasafe) (G4) 4 speed.
Ritek (Ridata) (G5) 8 speed. (Not sure about these yet)

Another suggestion often made is defragment your drive.
Delete the controller (in Device Manager) that you drive is on and reboot to install it again. this has worked for me once.

Good luck.

[johns0]

I would suggest you stay away from those brands and use dvd+r such as maxell and memorex if its ricohjpnr01 and TAIYO YUDEN,also make sure you d/l the latest firmware(VS0A) and if you have a nforce2 motherboard then install the ms ide drivers instead,also use the booksetting tool to burn dvd+r for dvd-rom bitsetting.Ive been burning with my sohw-812s@sohw832 and havent burned a coaster yet since buying it 2 months ago.