I have two DVD burners. An NEC 3500A and a BENQ1620 in two external enclosures. The NEC is an OEM drive with a Plumax External USB 2.0 enclosure. The BENQ1620 was purchased as Pacific Digital External DVD burner (IT SAYS 16X ALL OVER THE BOX!). Both drives are rated at 16x burn.
Neither drive will burn over 4x. I have tried my desktop computer, and I have tried my laptop. My desktop is a little old, but it's not the bottleneck. It's an Athlon XP 2500+ with 1.5gb of RAM. My laptop is an HP dv2000t Intel Core Duo with 2gb RAM.
I have tried both enclosures and both drives on BOTH computers. I have swapped the drives in the enclosures and tried on both computers (I tried all four combos). I've used DVD Decrypter and Nero and they all max out at 4x. It's absolutely bizarre. I've tried all kinds of media.
Nero Burst Speed is 7MB/sec. The Create Disc results are here:
Someone please let me know how I can fix this. I am so, so frustrated. Thanks!
It looks like "B7W9" is the newest for your model. Likewise, check the firmware on your NEC. It is probably outdated, too. Firmware, specific to your drive, must be current in order for your drive to recognize disks, brands, and speeds correctly. It tells your drive how to handle its business.
Yup, I'm not a newbie to firmware upgrades (or to computers in general).
Jumpers are set to master (I've tried cable select, too). My firmwares have been upgraded and downgraded. All cables are connected correctly.
It is most likely nothing to do with the drive, but with the enclosure itself. Since I tried it with two different computers, and swapped the drives in each enclosure (and got the same results), it HAS to be the enclosure.
I've heard that perhaps some cypress chipsets are slow. So let's say that's the case. I don't understand how they can sell a retail 16x usb external dvd drive and have it only burn at 4x (because the chipset only allows for 4x). Makes no sense.
