Hello All,

I have just purchased an EW164B USB2 burner and am having problems getting CDSpeed to perform a disk quality test. Within seconds it errors with a "Parameter Value Invalid (052602)" error.

I am running this connected to an HP NC6000 laptop with XP Pro SP2, Nero 6.6.1.4, CDSpeed 4.11 with no other USB devices connected. I have searched through the forums and on google and can find lots of stuff about enclosure chipsets and ASPI layers causing this problem so I checked:

- No ASPI other than Nero ASPI as both NERO and System ASPI.
- No upper/lower filters other tham IMAP and Redbook.
- NC6000 drivers, BIOS and XP all up to date.
- No VSO PCouffin drivers installed.
- Latest EW164B FW - BEGB.
- Changed USB Ports (there are 2 on the NC6000) - Still errors.
- Changed USB cable - Still errors.
- Tried via an external USB2.0 4 port hub - Still errors.

What bridge chipset the EW164B uses I cannot determine, but one would have thought that Benq would ensure that all the functions of the supplied software package (Nero OEM) work with their drive.

The scan disk and TRT tests work fine from CDSpeed but not the disk quality test. I have done everything I can think of short of re-installing the OS which I do not want to have to do. Burns from the EW164B on MCC03RG20 that I have scanned on my DW1620 at home are all great but I really would like to be able to scan on the EW164B.

Does anyone have any bright ideas or am I doomed

Many Thanks,

Richard.

I know this isn't helping you but my external BenQ164 BEFB is scanning just fine. I cannot think of what the problem could be. Can you connect via firewire?

Hi alan1476,

Unfortunately the EW164B is USB only so although I have firewire ports on my laptop the drive is USB only. I think from your previous posts that your drive is a cross flashed SONY which has firewire and USB. Does your drive do quality tests OK on both USB and firewire ? I am beginning to think that I should have purchased the SONY and cross flashed but in the UK the EW164B was £55.00 and the SONY £90.00

I will try it on another laptop (different model) next week and see if having a different USB chipset on the laptop (the NC6000 is Intel 855P based) makes any difference.

Cheers,

Richard.

Yes my drive has both Firewire and USB, but I have tried it on USB and Firewire and it scans perfectly on both. I have the Intel 865GV Chip.

Have you tried to remove disc after burn and turn off enclosure. Than turn it on, insert your disc and perform the scan.

Install ASPI 4.60 using ForceASPI. I know this idea is against the "mainstream" opinion here, but still worth a try.

Hello All,

An Update - I completely re-installed XP Pro SP2 into a spare partition in my NC6000 laptop and then installed Nero 6.6.1.4. So this has ***just*** the base SP2 OS and Nero. I then burned a TY 16x DVD+R no problems and tried to do a quality scan. Result - the same "parameter value incorrect" error part way through the scan. No other USB devices are connected and the EW164B is connected directly to the NC6000 without any hubs etc. I have logged a support call with BENQ and Nero who have replied with the usual requests for further information and asked me to check cables etc - which I have done.

I have also tried forceaspi to install ASPI 4.60 but still get the problem. I know that alan1476 has a x-flashed SONY to a EW164B that works for him with no problems on USB and Firewire. Having said that the SONY enclosure must be using a different ATAPI-USB chipset as it can do firewire as well. I tried using the prolific chipset FW tool to see if it could detect a prolific chipset in the EW164B but it can't so I assume it is not a prolific chip and am now up the creek without a paddle.

The main reason for purchasing the EW164B was that it was a good burner and could do quality scans. Without the scanning capability I have half a product. If Benq or Nero support cannot help then I may have to try and return the product to the place I purchased it and ask for a refund but I suspect they will say as it burns OK it is not faulty...

Cheers,

Richard.

You could always give dvdinfopro a try...

Last week, I bought the new 1650 burner and decided to pass on one of my 1640s to a friend.

As he wanted an external drive, I installed the 1640 (with firmware BSOB) into an ALi M5621 based USB2 enclosure that I no longer required.

After installation, I did all the usual tests like burning and reading without any problems.

However, as soon as I tried to perform a Disc Quality scan with Nero CD DVD Speed, I encountered the 'Parameter Invalid Error' as described above.

I tried a few more times after rebooting the PC and power cycling the enclosure but it always bombed out with the same error.

I can't recall seeing a post from anyone identifying the chipset used in the EW164B enclosure but it seems the ALi M5621 chipset was used in the previous model EW162I (http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.ph...6&postcount=82).

Perhaps the EW164B also uses the ALi chipset and it is the cause of the problem?

Hello All,

Qyngali - I have tried that latest version of DVDInfoPro and doing a PIO/PIE scan it hangs between 1% and 3% complete with no errors. I have tried this with several different disks with the same issue. This parallels the problems I am having with CDSpeed.

Mankmeister - I think you may be right, having done a bit more research I am sure that the EW164B uses an ALI M5621 chipset the same as the EW162i. But this chipset does not appear to be firmware upgradeable like the Prolific ones. My concern is that it is now looking as if this problem cannot be "user" solved and the chances of Benq doing anything if the problem is down to the
ALI chipset seem slim. I could take a big risk and try and cross flash to a SONY 810UL which is a re-badged Benq 1640 to see if the firmware for the
SONY makes any difference but even if successful I do not know if the SONY firmware will support PIE/PIO scanning.

Thanks for all your advice.

Cheers,

Richard.

The Sony firmware doesn't report PIF unfortunately.