I bought some months ago a BENQ DVD-RW drive (model dw 1620) and since the beginning I had some problems with it, for instance the drive feezing when burning.

The main issue is that after burning DVDs or CDs and when checking the burned media (CD or DVDs) it has "strange" circles of the burning, the drive doesn't make a "clean" burning.

I have also experienced strange situations like when extracting information from original media (like dvds) it also creates circles on the dvd.

Is this a sympton of a deffective drive or can this happen due to a wrong installation/configuration?

Welcome to the forums. While all of these things can happen with a non-defective drive, the BenQ 1620 has a long history of problems with correct operations and drives that died within the first few months of operation. I would check with BenQ service and see if they have any suggestions, possibly you will need to RMA the drive as a lot of us have.

BenQ service is 866-600-2367 if you are in the US, otherwise check here

http://support.benq.com/front/BenqMa...nMenu=&RootId=

When you say it creates circles on discs are you refering to the tonal change as the discs burn speed zones change? Or are you refering to a scuffing of the discs surface as its impossible afaik to change the colour of the data on pressed dvds.

Well if your drive freezes while burning this can be down to a bad Power Supply, what make and brand is it and what wattage? Those rings can appear also if your PSU is outputting varying amps due to it being at full load, it happened with my old cdwriter, my bad psu would make it write the discs with either visible burning rings or without any depending on what load the psu was under. Try the drive in another machine it does sound like the PSU to me.

It's probably the WOPC :-)

what is WOPC?

The freezing happened on the first weeks, but I upgraded firmware and didn't happened again.

What about when extracting from original dvds it also creates those circles? If I put a "clean" original DVD and when I take it off it has those same circles?

Another thing I noticed, when making the speed tests available on NERO the blank DVD when the tests finish can't be recorded, during the tests the drive writes in the media. But I'm almost sure that Nero tells that no information will be written during tests.

How can I see the power supply info? I believe it has 400 W.

It can be speed changes ( in Roxio I notice the speed changing), but sometimes the recorded DVD can't be played at all.

Still the strange is that the quantity of circles differ from burning, sometimes I get almost clean burnings and sometimes the media is full of circles.

I posted a image of a latest dvd, here goes:
http://pwp.netcabo.pt/0253326001/cd.jpg

do you have any pics of orginal dvds that have these circles?

Definetly looks like the PSU problem i had, try disconencting a few devices and what make and wattage is your PSU and have you tried the drive in a better computer with a better PSU.

Turn WOPC OFF when burning, with Quickee WOPC TOOL or QSuite

Doesnt Look like WOPC, WOPC doesntmakes so many areas of the disk look different, try your drive in another PC.

It can do! All of my 'cmc mag ae1' discs with WOPC on look the same as the one in the picture. The burn colour is constant with WOPC off though. WOPC On scans are good and play fine in the dvd players ive tried them with.

CMC MAG AE1 discs are the only discs which i have noticed this on though, any other discs i have used havnt got circles of different colour.

I turned off WOPC and it still happens.

What do you mean with a bad power supply? Deffective power supply?
Or an insuficient power supply? If its insuficient shouldn't I have another symptons of it?

What devices can I disconnect to test if its the power supply?

I believe I have a 400 or 450 W power supply.
The computer has around 3 years old, its a pentium 4 at 2,4 and with 512 Mb of RAM

I have a similar effect with CD written in multisession: each session seem to create a ring. Some CD with many sessions seems saturn's rings....

Are you create multisession discs?

To test if is a PSU issue, you can disconnect all hard discs (except the disc with operating system) and all devices (other optical units) unnecessary and then do a burn.

This might answer your question regarding the different colors on your disc after the burn is complete. (http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm)

" Recording drives from the past year have introduced variable-speed writing (P-CAV, Z-CLV, etc), which may result in slight color variations in the dye. The drives starts at a certain write speed, and the increase at certain points until it hits the maximum write speed of the disc/drive. Such variations are usually harmless to the burn quality."

The make is more important than the wattage as some high quality ones can outperform their rating while low quality ones dont even reach their max by a long shot.

Many replies but still no detailed information about media...
VladDrakul use DVD Identifier and post as full MID.
Information about your hardware and drive's firmware revision would also be nice.

@chas0039, not all BenQ's (1620) are defect only because they burn "rings", mine does this too...when feeded with crap media.