When I checked my mail inbox today, I was surprised to find the 2.R8 firmware for the NEC ND-3500A inside. There have been lots of rumours about this firmware, but nobody was able to get hold of it. With this firmware it should be possible to use the quality scanning feature in e.g. Nero CD-DVD Speed. Reports and comparisons about the scanning functionality are highly appreciated.

Please be aware that this firmware was compiled in March 2005 and will likely not burn all the latest optical media. It will probably lack support for many 16x discs that are for sale these days. You can download the unmodified version of this firmware as well as patches that include bitsetting, riplock removal and/or RPC1.

A big thank you goes out to whoever sent me this file.

Thank you for sharing Liggy

I still have my NEC 3500

Edit:
Now to dig it out and flash it
Looks more like tomorrow for me.

Anyone want to post a scan that has easier access to their 3500?

Alright i took my 3500 out of the plumax case and replacing my LO 160P6S for now.

So gimme 1 hour so i can finish this DL burn and switch out drives.

Well looky there. No grayed out Start button

Let's see how the 3500 does with a Verb +R DL burned with a LO LH-20A1P KL0N. Results later.

Here are the results.

I guess about 90% of these drives are worn out by now, the other 10% haven't been used much

If i'm thinking what i think you are thinking.....................it's ok you can have the f/w now if you still have a working drive

Come on Liggy and Dee. Don't you have a 3500 stashed back for the future

Perhaps BigMike7 or Chas0039.

Here's a Verb MIT PAPA from BB at 12X.

Liggy is there anyway you can incorporate the scanning ability for newer firmware's please

Sweet. Took it out of retirement just to try it out. Scanned through Prolific 1394.

I haven't been in to CDF for a while. I picked a good day to drop in though. I still use my first 3500AG ( I have a spare thanks to BigMike!) I will try it out and post the results.

Come on guys/gals. We bitched about not being able to scan with our 3500 for two+ years now and we finally can.

So lets see some burns and scans from your NEC 3500

Unfortunately, the firmware is old, so a few 16x media (RICOHJPNR03 and DAXONAZ3) are recognized at 4x, probably using generic strategy. Here's one that's using 12x ZCLV.

I never had a 3500 drive myself. The 2500@2510 is in my wife's PC and I'm working with a 3540 for scanning and 4551 for burning.

I already thought about that myself, but I don't think it will be possible. I may need some locations in the drive's RAM that are simply not reserved and cannot be allocated later on. But I will have a look at the current code.

And now how about some comparisons of this drive scanning at different speed or compared to scans of the same discs made with other drives?

Thanks Liggy.
More then two years to late but anyway, it's nice to see this firmware finally surfaced.

Thanks again.
.

There it is, finally. Thanks Liggy.

Okay, my ND-3500 is very much alive, nowdays residing in an old PII-266MHz box.
Run a @16x burn (torture test, heh).

pic1. Scan ND-3500 at 8x
pic2. Scan ND-3500 at 5x
pic3. Scan with BenQ DW1620 (in same compu)
.

If I compare your write graphs to the reported errors I have to say that I would trust the NEC scan over that of the BenQ. Something seems to have gone wrong while writing and only the NEC indicates this.

Here is my first one with this FW. Pretty ugly.

Good memory! My 3500 is still working well but I have 3 other drives better suited to scanning and the firmware I have in the 3500 is a perfect match for my media so I am hesitant to swap it out.

My 3520, however, is in constant daily use for RW media. Anything for scanning there would be interesting.

wow i woke up to only 7 posts after my last one I knew pinto2 would be in but i figured others would be here also.

ProdiscF02 @ 16x CAV.

Wow, finally the long awaited firmware. Hope that this firmware is as good as the latest for this drive for burning TY and Verbatim 8x and 16x DVD-Rs. Will definately give it a shot in the next few days....

CMCMAGE01 8x ZCLV.

Thanks for making this firmware available!

I've flashed my NEC 3500 to 2.R8 (bitsetting RPC1) and I'll post some scans of the same discs scanned in the NEC 3500 and other more well known scanning drives.

My inital testing indicates that 16x, 12x and 8x scanning is too fast for my NEC 3500 and that 5x is the way to go unless you have the patience for 1x scanning.

More from me later...

One disc scanned in a BenQ DW1655, LiteOn SHM-165P6S and NEC ND-3500AG. The disc was burned in a BenQ DW1655.

The 16x and 12x scanning speeds in my NEC 3500 show PIE that increase towards the outer edge, unlike the BenQ and LiteOn scans. This is an indication that these scanning speeds show results that are dominated by the drive and not by the disc. In my opinion these are not good scanning speeds for this particular drive.

The 8x and 1x scanning speeds show extreme PIF spikes that are not present at the 5x scanning speed nor in the other scanning drives. In my opinion these are also not good scanning speeds for this particular drive.

The 5x scan is similar to scans in the BenQ and LiteOn drives. I will be using the 5x scanning speed for more testing with other discs.

...scans of the same disc in a BenQ DW1655 and a LiteOn SHM-165P6S in the next post...