Hi all,

I've recently bought a Benq DW-1655 drive and am using it in an Akasa external housing via USB 2.0 on my laptop.

My query is whether it matters if my drive is set to master or slave for use with the housing and the laptop.

I also use a Hard Drive in another external housing via usb also set to master sometimes at the same time as the drive. Can this conflict in any way as both are set to Master...or doesn't it matter with USB 2.0

Thanks in advance.

i personally dont think it matters when it comes to usb 2. but I might be wrong

Set both to Master. Be prepared for some potential problems with your BenQ unless it is the Prolific or new Cypress AT2+ chipset. BenQ's are very picky and many external case chipsets have trouble with burners.

It actually doesn't matter how drive jumper is set as long we are dealing with Universal Serial Bus.
We are not talking about parallel bus (PATA) here chas0039.
Linky to thread everyone is welcome to participate.

However, I have to agree with chas0039 though about this (putting drive in enclosure) is not the best home for BenQ 1655, until we get an external firmware for 165* drive.

Let us know how it works El_Nino.

Oh no

I've just bought the Benq after having problems with the new Plextor PX-755...although I think the drive was actually faulty.

I'm not going to have a chance to try it until the weekend but can you give me a taste of what to expect, or I'll never sleep at night - coasters probably.

That'll teach me for not checking it out on these forums before my purchase

While you may be right technically, the instructions for most external enclosures specify Master, and there have been a number of chipsets that do not work if it is not set this way. I had one.

off topic.
Looking around you'll still find many enclosures not working with DVDRW's. But that has hardly anything to do with jumper. Most probably they are just outdated or not at all designed to work with opticals.

Can't comment "the instructions" because I haven't seen any technical explanation for that sofar.

I've got an enclosure and it says it'll work only with drives set to master. I had ALi chipset and it didn't work well with my DW1650. Now I'm waiting for another enclosure with Prolific chipset.

Cheers for all the replys.

Not looking forward to trying out my new drive.

Can anyone recommend a tried and tested external housing for the DW-1655 and possible a link to purchase it

Cheers again

You might want to post your location.......there's people from all over the earth here

Check out The big external enclosures thread and also chas0039's Ext. Enclosure Burn Test...

the best think is to use a tested solution(exclosure) that others have already checked...

Hi all,

Sorry forgot my manners...am based in the UK.

Finished work early to test my drive.

I know there's another thread on quality scans so I hope I'm not out of line by posting them here but are the results to be considered good. It's all foreign to me and would like your guys knowledge for peace of mind that my external enclosure agrees with the DW1655.

Thanks again

This is considered to ba a good scan and represent qulity brunt disc.

Without knowing all details that's still a very good burn and scan.
Transfer speed and burst rate are acceptable for this drive and enclosure.
Be happy with cosistent 12x burns El_Nino.

Hi,

I'm based in the UK, can anyone recommend a tried and tested USB external enclosure for my drive and where to purchase. I'm getting intermittent problems with mine with my current Akasa housing.

I've search on the forum but can only find info for the US

Also will the latest firmware BCHB make any difference to the performance of my drive in my current housing???

Cheers

SVP have sent me an email along time ago listing there current range of enclosures as Prolific 3507 chipsets. It may be worth mailing them and just checking agian.

www.svp.co.uk

No, the current firmware will not make any difference to the speed, it may improve burn quality though. You can flash back if needed.

Hi all,

Please can you guys confirm that the Prolific PL-3507C chipset will be 100% suitable for use by either USB 2.0 or firewire (which is best???) for my DW1655 as my current Akasa enclosure with my laptop is giving me intermittant problems - not starting a burn or freezing half way through.

Sorry if I am going over the same ground, but I want to make sure that the Prolific enclosure is going to be suitable without spending another £20+ and still getting problems with this drive.

Cheers

You won't get 16x burns with this (or any other) enclosure and your BenQ 1655, unless BenQ releases a firmware capable of running UDMA 4.

If your system is up to it, you will be able to read and write at 12x.
Maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to read at 16x with FireWire, but probably not with USB.

To get optimal performance of your BenQ in a PL-3507 enclosure, you should make sure the enclosure has the latest firmware (available here).

In general FireWire has a slight performance edge, and it uses less CPU than USB. Whether you'll notice any actual difference is difficult to say.

Now I can't speak from personal experience, but on paper, USB2 is faster than Firewire - 480 kbps vs 400 kbps.

There could obviously be some system resource overhead to slow down USB2 vs Firewire, but I don't know that either way. Just commenting on raw data transfer speeds.