Alcohol 120% not detecting BENQ 1620

[redskull]

I just installed my new DVD writer, the BENQ 1620. It works great with NERO. Alcohol 120% will not detect it though. I have the latest version and even uninstalled and reinstalled. I changed the device control interface to all available and none worked. I have the latest firmware as well. Please help...

[lordsmurf]

That drive is such a hunk of crap. It barely works with anything at all. One of my close friends has been plagued by this POS.

[Heff]

That drive is such a hunk of crap. It barely works with anything at all. One of my close friends has been plagued by this POS.

That's such B/S. It's gotten two Editor's choice awards and I have yet to see a negative review of it. Just go to cdfreaks.com Benq forum and see how many problems threads you see there compare to NEC, Pioneer or BTC forums. Even more NECs owners are saying they're next drive may be a BenQ. And BenQ has done the best job of supporting they're burners with regular firmware updates to make it an excellent + and - burner.

My alcholol 120% 1.9.2 1705 detects my DW1620 just fine, as has, CloneDVD2, CloneCD, Nero, Shrink, and Decrypter. In 200 burns I've not had one coaster with burns avg 95% on the Cd-Speed quality score.

[Krispy Kritter]

Uninstalling and reinstalling Alcohol should correct the problem. This is the case with most burning software after installing a new drive.

[studmonkey76]

I have the same drive and love it. It has yet to fail me one time.

[tekkieman]

You might be a little outvoted on this one ls...Love mine!

[jackedup]

That drive is such a hunk of crap. It barely works with anything at all. One of my close friends has been plagued by this POS.

That's such B/S. It's gotten two Editor's choice awards and I have yet to see a negative review of it. Just go to cdfreaks.com Benq forum and see how many problems threads you see there compare to NEC, Pioneer or BTC forums. Even more NECs owners are saying they're next drive may be a BenQ. And BenQ has done the best job of supporting they're burners with regular firmware updates to make it an excellent + and - burner.

My alcholol 120% 1.9.2 1705 detects my DW1620 just fine, as has, CloneDVD2, CloneCD, Nero, Shrink, and Decrypter. In 200 burns I've not had one coaster with burns avg 95% on the Cd-Speed quality score.

Editors choice or not I bought one Saturday and took it back today.

I have some Prodisc S04 disks and while I have had problems with my LG, at least the LG with write all the way through and sometime verify while others times it did not verify. Same goes for the HP 630 I have, but it does verify more often than the LG.

The Benq wrote the first disk but would not verify and the next 3 disks did not even get through the writing process before quitting.

[budz]

That drive is such a hunk of crap. It barely works with anything at all. One of my close friends has been plagued by this POS.

That's such B/S. It's gotten two Editor's choice awards and I have yet to see a negative review of it. Just go to cdfreaks.com Benq forum and see how many problems threads you see there compare to NEC, Pioneer or BTC forums. Even more NECs owners are saying they're next drive may be a BenQ. And BenQ has done the best job of supporting they're burners with regular firmware updates to make it an excellent + and - burner.

My alcholol 120% 1.9.2 1705 detects my DW1620 just fine, as has, CloneDVD2, CloneCD, Nero, Shrink, and Decrypter. In 200 burns I've not had one coaster with burns avg 95% on the Cd-Speed quality score.

Editors choice or not I bought one Saturday and took it back today.

I have some Prodisc S04 disks and while I have had problems with my LG, at least the LG with write all the way through and sometime verify while others times it did not verify. Same goes for the HP 630 I have, but it does verify more often than the LG.

The Benq wrote the first disk but would not verify and the next 3 disks did not even get through the writing process before quitting.

get better media next time.....prodisc isn't the best quality media but that's just my opinion....you should have given the 1620 a chance and checked out the BENQ FORUM at cdfreaks.com....btw some HP burners are rebadged BENQ drives....

lordsmurf wrote:

That drive is such a hunk of crap. It barely works with anything at all. One of my close friends has been plagued by this POS.

i have two 1620 drives and they burn both DVD-R/+ very well and playback on all of my standalone dvd players as well as on my family and friends players. as already stated it has rave reviews from cdrlabs and cdfreaks.com. the 1620 is a great drive with the best support from BENQ. there's no need for hacked firmware to allow bitsetting or 4x DUAL LAYER burning because BENQ provides their own firmwares.

[Denvers Dawgs]

I'm about to get the 1620, actually I was going to buy an hp 630 writer, and found out it was benq1620 so saving myself $40 w/o HP logo....

So Lordsmurf what dual layer burner do you, prefer? NEC, Pioneer? Why? I also have not read a bad review on the 1620, and the threads that I have read on it have said good things.....

[jackedup]

That drive is such a hunk of crap. It barely works with anything at all. One of my close friends has been plagued by this POS.

That's such B/S. It's gotten two Editor's choice awards and I have yet to see a negative review of it. Just go to cdfreaks.com Benq forum and see how many problems threads you see there compare to NEC, Pioneer or BTC forums. Even more NECs owners are saying they're next drive may be a BenQ. And BenQ has done the best job of supporting they're burners with regular firmware updates to make it an excellent + and - burner.

My alcholol 120% 1.9.2 1705 detects my DW1620 just fine, as has, CloneDVD2, CloneCD, Nero, Shrink, and Decrypter. In 200 burns I've not had one coaster with burns avg 95% on the Cd-Speed quality score.

Editors choice or not I bought one Saturday and took it back today.

I have some Prodisc S04 disks and while I have had problems with my LG, at least the LG with write all the way through and sometime verify while others times it did not verify. Same goes for the HP 630 I have, but it does verify more often than the LG.

The Benq wrote the first disk but would not verify and the next 3 disks did not even get through the writing process before quitting.

get better media next time.....prodisc isn't the best quality media but that's just my opinion....you should have given the 1620 a chance and checked out the BENQ FORUM at cdfreaks.com....btw some HP burners are rebadged BENQ drives....

lordsmurf wrote:

That drive is such a hunk of crap. It barely works with anything at all. One of my close friends has been plagued by this POS.

i have two 1620 drives and they burn both DVD-R/+ very well and playback on all of my standalone dvd players as well as on my family and friends players. as already stated it has rave reviews from cdrlabs and cdfreaks.com. the 1620 is a great drive with the best support from BENQ. there's no need for hacked firmware to allow bitsetting or 4x DUAL LAYER burning because BENQ provides their own firmwares.

I'll agree Prodisc is not the best media anymore but if you have to buy the best media in order for it to work in a drive perhaps the drive is not as good as many say. If you are using the best media then you should be able to write it error free with any writer for that matter.

I am not knocking the BenQ just relaying my own experience and based n that would certainly not buy another one.

[jackedup]

I'm about to get the 1620, actually I was going to buy an hp 630 writer, and found out it was benq1620 so saving myself $40 w/o HP logo....

So Lordsmurf what dual layer burner do you, prefer? NEC, Pioneer? Why? I also have not read a bad review on the 1620, and the threads that I have read on it have said good things.....

The HP630 is about $30 cheaper than the BenQ 1620 where I am.

[budz]

jackedup wrote:

I'll agree Prodisc is not the best media anymore but if you have to buy the best media in order for it to work in a drive perhaps the drive is not as good as many say. If you are using the best media then you should be able to write it error free with any writer for that matter.

I am not knocking the BenQ just relaying my own experience and based n that would certainly not buy another one.

when was prodisc great media? in my experiences with different brands of media as well as dvd burners TAIYO YUDEN & MAXELL's burned well even in my crappy LITEON 411@811 drive.....you need to understand that every dvd writer is not the same.....firmware has a lot to do with compatibility of different brands of dvd media....i'm assuming all you tried was prodisc media and gave up because it was crappy for you....did you ever upgrade the firmware so maybe the prodisc media could be burned with better quality than what you had before?

did you purchase a retail BENQ 1620 drive or did you purchase a rebadged one like I/O MAGIC or a HP one? you didn't mention it in your original post. Not every I/O MAGIC drive is a rebadged BENQ 1620. the other rebadged I/O MAGIC is a BTC drive which is crappy.

[lordsmurf]

I'm about to get the 1620, actually I was going to buy an hp 630 writer, and found out it was benq1620 so saving myself $40 w/o HP logo....

So Lordsmurf what dual layer burner do you, prefer? NEC, Pioneer? Why? I also have not read a bad review on the 1620, and the threads that I have read on it have said good things.....

Pioneer is best. Better software support, better media cooperation.
Maybe a LiteOn too. Also very few problems overall.

NEC has problems with too much media. Always has.

BenQ is a huge pain to get software cooperation.
Media cooperation isn't great either.

BTC is fine. Only flaw is it tends to hate Taiyo Yuden discs.

+++++++++++++++

Editor's choice awards are meaningless. Very often reviews for hardware are also based on the freebie software that comes with it, or how many seconds faster it is. How stupid. I see this all the time. Those people should have their writing privileges revoked.

Prodisc is good media. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. If the drive rejects all PRODISC, get a better drive. Odds are it would reject TDK and MCC media too, and that's not a good sign as THOSE are some of the best media.

[jackedup]

jackedup wrote:

I'll agree Prodisc is not the best media anymore but if you have to buy the best media in order for it to work in a drive perhaps the drive is not as good as many say. If you are using the best media then you should be able to write it error free with any writer for that matter.

I am not knocking the BenQ just relaying my own experience and based n that would certainly not buy another one.

when was prodisc great media? in my experiences with different brands of media as well as dvd burners TAIYO YUDEN & MAXELL's burned well even in my crappy LITEON 411@811 drive.....you need to understand that every dvd writer is not the same.....firmware has a lot to do with compatibility of different brands of dvd media....i'm assuming all you tried was prodisc media and gave up because it was crappy for you....did you ever upgrade the firmware so maybe the prodisc media could be burned with better quality than what you had before?

did you purchase a retail BENQ 1620 drive or did you purchase a rebadged one like I/O MAGIC or a HP one? you didn't mention it in your original post. Not every I/O MAGIC drive is a rebadged BENQ 1620. the other rebadged I/O MAGIC is a BTC drive which is crappy.

I don't think I either said or for that matter even implied Prodisc was great media. For me it was decent media at a decent price. Far from the best, and far from the worst.

The BENQ I bought was a retail version in a BENQ box bought at a local electronics store. I tried the first couple of DVDs and when I had problems checked for a firmware update, which I downloaded and installed however there was no improvement.

While I didn't necessarily expect the BENQ to perform better with the Prodisc disks then either the LG or the HP I hoped it would. Not only did it not perform better it performed much worse then either of the other two writers I have

Neither the LG nor the HP had problems during writing but not all disks verified however the BENQ could not even write the entire disks before failing, so while my next order of disks will not be Prodisc I can at least use the disks to test drives.

Perhaps others have had better luck with the BENQ it sure didn't perform for me.

[-jsl-]

I don't agree with one single line:

Pioneer is best. Better software support, better media cooperation.
Maybe a LiteOn too. Also very few problems overall.

Not even sure what you mean with "software support"? You mean firmware support? It's not that good and media support could be better, especially for new 16x media.

NEC has problems with too much media. Always has.

No.

BenQ is a huge pain to get software cooperation.
Media cooperation isn't great either.

"Software cooperation"?
BenQ has likely the best media support on the market.

BTC is fine. Only flaw is it tends to hate Taiyo Yuden discs.

...and burns with horrible quality on just about every other kind of disc on the market. BTC makes some of the worst burners available.

Editor's choice awards are meaningless. Very often reviews for hardware are also based on the freebie software that comes with it, or how many seconds faster it is. How stupid. I see this all the time. Those people should have their writing privileges revoked.

BenQ DW1620 has got Editor's choice from two dedicated DVD hardware sites (cdfreaks and cdrinfo) that sure knows a lot more about testing DVD writers and media than you do. It also got 8/10 at cdrlabs but the reviewer says he would give it a 9/10 or 10/10 with the latest firmware and he now owns two BenQ writers.

Prodisc is good media. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. If the drive rejects all PRODISC, get a better drive. Odds are it would reject TDK and MCC media too, and that's not a good sign as THOSE are some of the best media.

Prodisc works fine with the BenQ including the ProdiscS04 (which is not very good media) as you can see in the review here.

@Jackedup: HP 630 is a rebadged DW1620 so either you used an old firmware on the BenQ or you got a lemon.

[jackedup]

Prodisc is good media. Not the best, but certainly not the worst. If the drive rejects all PRODISC, get a better drive. Odds are it would reject TDK and MCC media too, and that's not a good sign as THOSE are some of the best media

Prodisc works fine with the BenQ including the ProdiscS04 (which is not very good media) as you can see in the review here.

@Jackedup: HP 630 is a rebadged DW1620 so either you used an old firmware on the BenQ or you got a lemon.

Brand:
eProformance

Manufacturer:
Prodisc

Code:
ProdiscS04

Disc Type:
DVD-R

Capacity:
4489MB

Certified Speed:
8x

Write Speed:
12x

Write Time:
6m:20s

PI-8 errors Average/Sec:
45.57

PI-8 uncorrectable errors(PO) Avg/Sec:
0.00


Again a satisfying result as there are few PI Failures and a clean reading curve.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the link you posted part of which is shown above it doesn't seem the Prodisc S04 is all that bad of a disk, but also know it is not the best disk and I won't be buying anymore.

It is certainly possible I got a lemon, as as I mentinoed I did upgrade the firmware posted on BenQ's site and it made no difference.

Out of the 3 drives I tried the BenQ did the worst. If in fact then HP is actaully a 1620 BenQ, then perhaps the BenQ was in fact a lemon as the HP performed much better than the BenQ.

I didn't really see any point testing any other media. If I find a media that all of the drives write without a problem it doesn't prove anything, or prove which drive performs better than the other. I happen to have a media that none of the 3 drives will write consistently without problems but again the BenQ did not even write the whole disk let alone verify, whereas the LG and HP at least would write the disk everytime, and some verified and some did not.

[budz]

jackedup what firmware did you use with the drive? B7P9 or G79P? B7T9? if you read threads at the BENQ FORUM the firmware B7P9 is the best all around firmware for the drive.....but then again you returned it so no sense asking eh!

[jackedup]

jackedup what firmware did you use with the drive? B7P9 or G79P? B7T9? if you read threads at the BENQ FORUM the firmware B7P9 is the best all around firmware for the drive.....but then again you returned it so no sense asking eh!

B7P9 was on the drive when I got it. When I had trouble writing and verifying I upgraded it to the B7T9 and then it did not complete even writing let alone verifying.

[budz]

jackedup what firmware did you use with the drive? B7P9 or G79P? B7T9? if you read threads at the BENQ FORUM the firmware B7P9 is the best all around firmware for the drive.....but then again you returned it so no sense asking eh!

B7P9 was on the drive when I got it. When I had trouble writing and verifying I upgraded it to the B7T9 and then it did not complete even writing let alone verifying.

as i mentioned before you didn't use any other media to test the drive.....you never gave it a chance and you could have had a defective drive...again that's my opinion....

[Phantom Of The Opera]

I have a BenQ 1620 drive and I like it just fine. (I've had it for a couple of weeks). It works great with Verbatim and Memorex +R disks at 16x and 8x respectively, and Maxell +RW at 2.4x. I haven't tried any other disks, but the first chance I get, I'll try a few -Rs, just out of curiosity. (BTW, I mostly use Nero to burn stuff).

You know, I have nothing against LiteOn or Pioneer, but to gratuitously dismiss BenQ as "a hunk of crap" that "barely works on anything at all" is egregious nonsense.

BenQ is a huge pain to get software cooperation.
Media cooperation isn't great either.

"software cooperation"?? "media cooperation"?? What the hell do these terms mean anyway? Your software doesn't recognize the drive? Won't burn with it? Media not recognized? Burns failed? Details please!

To people considering whether to buy the BenQ drive or not: do yourself a favour and don't believe these sob stories unless they come from an actual user/owner who is willing to give details of his/her bad experiences.

[jackedup]

jackedup what firmware did you use with the drive? B7P9 or G79P? B7T9? if you read threads at the BENQ FORUM the firmware B7P9 is the best all around firmware for the drive.....but then again you returned it so no sense asking eh!

B7P9 was on the drive when I got it. When I had trouble writing and verifying I upgraded it to the B7T9 and then it did not complete even writing let alone verifying.

as i mentioned before you didn't use any other media to test the drive.....you never gave it a chance and you could have had a defective drive...again that's my opinion....

I guess if I choose a media that would work in any writer it wouldn't prove anything, as all of the writers write to it how would you judge the BenQ as being better than either the LG or HP I have.

If you choose a media that won't write with everything, like the Prodisc S04s I have, than you can compare the drives and conclude which of the 3 drives performed better. Out of the 3 drives I tried, all with the same media, the BenQ performed much worse than either of the other two.

Again it is certainly possible I got a lemon but would be very apprehensive to try another one.

[budz]

I guess if I choose a media that would work in any writer it wouldn't prove anything, as all of the writers write to it how would you judge the BenQ as being better than either the LG or HP I have.

If you choose a media that won't write with everything, like the Prodisc S04s I have, than you can compare the drives and conclude which of the 3 drives performed better. Out of the 3 drives I tried, all with the same media, the BenQ performed much worse than either of the other two.

Again it is certainly possible I got a lemon but would be very apprehensive to try another one.

have fun with your lg and hp and prodisc media....when sometime in the future when those prodiscs can't be read back, you'll wonder why and what went wrong. it doesn't seem you understand that every dvd burner will not burn every single brand of media that is out on the market..... you base your conclusions on what? one brand of media...well in my opinion prodisc isn't the best media...but hey to each's own.......there are many others that like the BENQ 1620 drive.....

[jackedup]

I guess if I choose a media that would work in any writer it wouldn't prove anything, as all of the writers write to it how would you judge the BenQ as being better than either the LG or HP I have.

If you choose a media that won't write with everything, like the Prodisc S04s I have, than you can compare the drives and conclude which of the 3 drives performed better. Out of the 3 drives I tried, all with the same media, the BenQ performed much worse than either of the other two.

Again it is certainly possible I got a lemon but would be very apprehensive to try another one.

have fun with your lg and hp and prodisc media....when sometime in the future when those prodiscs can't be read back, you'll wonder why and what went wrong. it doesn't seem you understand that every dvd burner will not burn every single brand of media that is out on the market..... you base your conclusions on what? one brand of media...well in my opinion prodisc isn't the best media...but hey to each's own.......there are many others that like the BENQ 1620 drive.....

I have already replaced the Prodisc disks, as I don't like them, but use them to test drives, and which drives perform better than others. As I said if I used TY for example all of the drives would likely perform well. I want to eliminate the drives that don't write well, and the BenQ I had perfomed much worse than the other two drives I have. As I stated before perhaps it is a lemon, but for me will stick with the brands that seemed to have proven themselves. I have ordered a new Pioneer so will see how it performs in comparison to the others.

[budz]

I guess if I choose a media that would work in any writer it wouldn't prove anything, as all of the writers write to it how would you judge the BenQ as being better than either the LG or HP I have.

If you choose a media that won't write with everything, like the Prodisc S04s I have, than you can compare the drives and conclude which of the 3 drives performed better. Out of the 3 drives I tried, all with the same media, the BenQ performed much worse than either of the other two.

Again it is certainly possible I got a lemon but would be very apprehensive to try another one.

have fun with your lg and hp and prodisc media....when sometime in the future when those prodiscs can't be read back, you'll wonder why and what went wrong. it doesn't seem you understand that every dvd burner will not burn every single brand of media that is out on the market..... you base your conclusions on what? one brand of media...well in my opinion prodisc isn't the best media...but hey to each's own.......there are many others that like the BENQ 1620 drive.....

I have already replaced the Prodisc disks, as I don't like them, but use them to test drives, and which drives perform better than others. As I said if I used TY for example all of the drives would likely perform well. I want to eliminate the drives that don't write well, and the BenQ I had perfomed much worse than the other two drives I have. As I stated before perhaps it is a lemon, but for me will stick with the brands that seemed to have proven themselves. I have ordered a new Pioneer so will see how it performs in comparison to the others.

you still don't get it do you! too bad you didn't try using TAIYO YUDEN on that BENQ 1620 cuz my BENQ's burn flawlessly on them.

[jackedup]

I guess if I choose a media that would work in any writer it wouldn't prove anything, as all of the writers write to it how would you judge the BenQ as being better than either the LG or HP I have.

If you choose a media that won't write with everything, like the Prodisc S04s I have, than you can compare the drives and conclude which of the 3 drives performed better. Out of the 3 drives I tried, all with the same media, the BenQ performed much worse than either of the other two.

Again it is certainly possible I got a lemon but would be very apprehensive to try another one.

have fun with your lg and hp and prodisc media....when sometime in the future when those prodiscs can't be read back, you'll wonder why and what went wrong. it doesn't seem you understand that every dvd burner will not burn every single brand of media that is out on the market..... you base your conclusions on what? one brand of media...well in my opinion prodisc isn't the best media...but hey to each's own.......there are many others that like the BENQ 1620 drive.....

I have already replaced the Prodisc disks, as I don't like them, but use them to test drives, and which drives perform better than others. As I said if I used TY for example all of the drives would likely perform well. I want to eliminate the drives that don't write well, and the BenQ I had perfomed much worse than the other two drives I have. As I stated before perhaps it is a lemon, but for me will stick with the brands that seemed to have proven themselves. I have ordered a new Pioneer so will see how it performs in comparison to the others.

you still don't get it do you! too bad you didn't try using TAIYO YUDEN on that BENQ 1620 cuz my BENQ's burn flawlessly on them.

I thank you for your replies, and no disrespect meant, but I think you are missing my point. If I used TY I am sure all of the writers I have would burn them flawlessly and wouln't prove the BenQ was better or worse than either of the other two drives. If you test a drive on a media that is not so easy to write to you can easily determine which drive performs better as I stated before.

[Denvers Dawgs]

It just all depends on what type of media you like. If you like Prodisc, TY, Princo of course your going to look for a writer that writes to your media the best. You can search forever and not find a single writer that will work with every media made. Why are you testing drives with Prodisc anyway. Why not just pick a writer thats fits to your quality of media and go with that......this thread is getting outragously meaningless. (Prodisc is good media, just the R03 inkjet printable hubs were the bad batch recently). Why did I even Post this?

[jackedup]

It just all depends on what type of media you like. If you like Prodisc, TY, Princo of course your going to look for a writer that writes to your media the best. You can search forever and not find a single writer that will work with every media made. Why are you testing drives with Prodisc anyway. Why not just pick a writer thats fits to your quality of media and go with that......this thread is getting outragously meaningless. (Prodisc is good media, just the R03 inkjet printable hubs were the bad batch recently). Why did I even Post this?

I don't know that I completely agree that you won't find a writer that will write all media. While some writers may have a problem with an occasional disk from any brand for the most part one would think that most writers will write most brands of DVDs, if not all brands.

Anyway when the Pioneed arrives I will see how it performs in comparison to the other ones I have tried.

[Denvers Dawgs]

ok, well good luck with that....

[lordsmurf]

"software cooperation"?? "media cooperation"?? What the hell do these terms mean anyway? Your software doesn't recognize the drive? Won't burn with it? Media not recognized? Burns failed? Details please!

Yes. All of that.

[doppletwo]

My two cents.

I have BTC 1108 it is the worst burner.

Not only is it slow, it is very inconsistant. It was an impulse buy $50 (USD).

BTC has a Coaster rate of 6% with media that has a coaster rate that is less than 1% on other burners.

Maybe it's my firmware I am using the original stock firmware.

Lordsmurf Are you using special Firmware on you BTC?