Hello, everyone!

Although I have been lurking around this sub-forum for some time, I am still not very familiar with it, so I would like to pose this question to you, the members of the forum...

As the subject says, does this forum need an FAQ? Why or why not? And if so, what topics should be covered? What questions do you think should be asked? And if not, why not (because it's not necessary, or because there are better alternatives to a FAQ, or because... etc...)?

I would be willing to write a little FAQ for this forum, but since you guys are more familiar with the drive and with this particular forum, I would like to get your feedback first (and some help/contributions regarding what to include on it; if there is to be one, I hope it'll be a community effort ).

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Edit: Now that C0deKing has created a F.A.Q. for this forum, the purpose of this thread is to now serve as a place to post comments/suggestions/etc. about the F.A.Q. since the F.A.Q. thread itself is locked.

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I think it's a great idea that a FAQ be included in the BENQ forum.....Over the last few weeks the same questions are asked regarding cross flashing a OEM 1620 drive that has firmware "G" to a RETAIL drive that has "B" firmware.....it would be helpful to have the instructions on cross flashing those drives listed in the FAQ....There are others here in this forum that are much more experienced with the 1620 drive than I am....I am sure they would be willing to contribute to the FAQ....anyway that's just my 2 cents...

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PLEXTOR 708A DVDRW
PIONEER 107D DVDRW
LITEON 811 DVDRW
BENQ 1620 DVDRW (2)
TOSHIBA (2)1612 DVD-ROM
PLEXTOR 48X24X48 CDRW
PENT 4 HT 3.00C, 800 FSB, PENT 4 2.40 533 FSB
ASUS MOBO's P4P800SE (2)
1GB CRUCIAL PC3200 MEMORY, 1GB CRUCIAL PC2700
WESTERN DIGITAL 36GB RAPTOR HARD DRIVE
MAXTOR 200 GB HARD DRIVE
MAXTOR (2)250 GB HARD DRIVEs
MAXTOR 200 GB SATA HARD DRIVE
MAXTOR (2)120 GB HARD DRIVEs
MAXTOR 60 GB HARD DRIVE
ANTEC TRUE POWER 480 WATT POWER SUPPLY
ANTEC TRUE POWER 430 WATT POWER SUPPLY
ANTEC SLK2650 CASE, ANTEC SLK2600AMB CASE
CANOPUS ADVC-100 ANALOG TO DIGITAL CONVERTER
MAXTOR ATA -133 PCI CONTROLLER CARDS

Excellent idea there. I think it needs to be done.

Some things to cover:

How to flash your drive (certain drives which require you to flash to 1 firmware and then to another)
List all of the rebadges
Distinguishing what drive you have
Link to the bad/good media list for certain benq drives (the threads are usually on top of others but they might not always stay that way)
Dispel a few myths, such as the proposed bad quality of –R burns

Topic:

FLashing your BenQ with nforce drivers with firmware below "M" or is it "P".

Topics:

1.Benq 800 dvd+r only fw and dvd+-r fw.(including the $10 stuff)
2.800@822
3.Dos and Win flash tools + cvt
4.830 q&A including , 800@822@830 + reversal, and issues with the last offical fw for the 830.
5.800 B2*7, B3*7, and B4*7 fw series q&a
6.822 to dual layer q&a
7.CD-DVD Speed with the Benq q&a
8.1610 dual layer
9.Bitsetting Tool q&a

Hmm,... what else....

I was actually thinking the same thing a FAQ would be a good idea and I started making one however I'm by no means an expert so if someone points out any glaring mistakes by all means do.

I made the FAQ by copying wesocietys new NEC FAQ, it pretty much covers the 1620 only though, also the table of contents doesnt work couldnt figure out how he did that : )

If anyone thinks of it is any use for a forum FAQ let me know

8T8's BenQ 1620 FAQ attempt

FAQ is always needed... and don't forget about Philips drives!

yeah great idea !

hell yeah!!

I wonder what were the reasons to say No to this poll.

Kenshin, who cares??

It's 22-2-1 (yes-no-undecided), so the ones who said no are outnumbered!!

FAQ would be great : ).

Hmm. I guess there's pretty much a consensus... I was going to wait a bit longer before doing anything, but since 8T8 provided a sketch to work from (thanks I'm using it to lay the foundation for the new FAQ), I thought that we might as well get things started.

Here is the FAQ: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=138436

A large number of things still need to be done, however, and any help would be great!

1/ As Quikee2 said, more information needs to be included about the Philips (and other OEM rebadges) of the BenQs.

2/ There needs to be more information about the 8x DVD writers. Their features, specs, notes about using them for disc quality scanning, their firmwares, etc. I am most familiar with the 16x writers, and I'm not as familiar with the 8x writers, so contributions there would be very helpful!

3/ There's a lot of other miscellaneous things that need changing. Maybe some stuff about WOPC, some stuff about not confusing BenQ drives with other Nexperia-based drives (like the 8x Nu or Cyberdrives), and anything else that needs doing.

(@8T8: BTW, menus and whatnot in the NEC and general FAQs were auto-generated by a script ... don't do them by hand )

Yes, a FAQ section would be very helpful; especially to newbies.

code65536 yeah I was using MS word to make it because I have zero HTML knowledge but thx for using it I hope its of some help to others I only stuck to the 1620 because its the only BenQ drive I have being a NEC owner from the days of the 1100A so I didn't really know that much covering the past generations of BenQ/Philips writers.

Their were one or two things I didnt cover because I wasnt exactly sure myself such as is the 1610 cross flashable to a 1620 I searched and found only one thread with an answer saying no it isnt as their different drives internally despite the name but I couldnt seem to find that info anywhere else to back it up.

I second that idea!

Bust the Myth that the BenQ doesn't do - media well. You might list some safe media (+ and -) that is quality and burns well.

Hi, I've some things to add for you:

First, can you mention that as a plus, BenQ 1620 based drives are exceptionally good readers? I've been able to read discs that none of my other drives could deal with. A downside of this though is that they're not ideal for disc quality scanning, as they give much better results than other drives will.

I recently got hold of a Philips DVDR1640p drive, so I can add this info:

The dual-layer 16x DVDR1640p uses the same hardware as the BenQ 1620, and thus can also use BenQ 1620 firmware. The BenQ utilities also work with this drive, even with Philips firmware installed.

Note that only the retail versions of this drive have the nice large LEDs on the front - the OEM (bulk) versions only have a plain fascia!


The current offically released firmware for it is P2.4 (although P2.5 is also available, I've uploaded it here). The imminent P3.0 firmware will add 4x dual-layer support, and 16x DVD-R writing (ie. it will catch up to the recent BenQ firmwares). There is no RPC1 patched Philips firmware that I'm aware of, but RCP1 BenQ firmwares can be used (see below).

This drive can be cross-flashed to BenQ 1620 firmwares, with the appropriate .CVT file (using official BenQ firmwares will not work, as they will detect that this is not officially a BenQ drive - .CVT files don't perform this check).

However, the BenQ firmwares disable parts of the Philips retail LEDs: 1) the blue DVD media LED no longer lights - instead, the CD LED is used for both media. 2) the large blue 'read' LED no longer lights (the red 'write' LED still works though). For this reason you may want to stick with Philips firmware (I do : ).

If you want to go back to Philips firmware after having flashed BenQ's, you need to find a Philips .CVT file. These are hard to come by at the time of writing. I have uploaded P2.2 CVT here (thanks Chesko). Once this is flashed, any official Philips firmware can be flashed again.

It is a good idea to flash back to Philips firmware if you need to send the drive back for replacement/repair. Flashing unsupported firmware voids the drive's warranty.

That's all for now.
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gl

definitely list the compatiblity media list (or even incompatibility media list). also instead of listing only the code names, it'd be nice to list the brandname along with its fabrication country, so we can spot them easier. (for those like me who do not have experiences with dvd+/-r's)

Some more pictures (I exceeded my 30min edit timeout):

Retail (black version)
OEM (black, beige also available).
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gl

Make it sticky, please!

Something for the faq: http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=121231

Another item for the FAQ is the use of firmware B7L9 to fix a bad flash and reset the drive.

It's still a very rought draft. A lot of information is incomplete, there is still a lot to be added, and there are probably a number of corrections needed, too... so I'm leaving it unstuck for now...

The 80 wire cable that is included with a warning note on paper (says to use that cable) with retail drives.
However, no such help is included with generics. Some rebadges include the cheapest 40 wire cable possible. An I/O Magic customer reported problems that were solved by replacing the (new) I/O Magic 40 wire cable with the 80 wire ribbon cable recommended by BenQ.

So, I tried mine on an ordinary 40 wire cable to see if this was folklore.
40 wire cable= intermittent quirkyness, intermittent errors with Nero, reduced performance, increased % of intermittent coasters.
Returned it to the retail cable and the troubles dissappeared as if by magic. So it's not folklore. However the necessity of this better cable seems to be motherboard chipset-inspired, and thus, the variance may not be experienced by all users.