I've just ordered 1640 for 50Euros from an e-store here in Greece.
Could you give me any quick tips about the usage or known problems?
Thanks.

In my experience I find that disabling WOPC with authentic Taiyo yuden discs slightly reduce errors (both PIE and PIF).

Another thing: all firmwares have an issue that benq don't recognize, so don't burn any MCC004 media @16, but @12x max. If you burn these media @16 there will be some spike around 3,5 GB of the burn.

Right now I don't recall other things, but I'll post if I find some other things.

Hope this can help

There are tons of information about this drive in this forum all you have to do do a little search and read before you asking others for help. BTW : the drive is very good burner and you can also read CDFreaks review about this driv.

Actually all DVD+R discs have this problem when burned on BenQ 1620 or BenQ 1640 at 16x.

Thanks Quikee. I thinked that was limited only to MCC004 media.

Thanks friends, and Tcas I am reading a lot but I couldn't find anything like the bad thing with +R anywhere.Don't be so aggresive and if you want to be please don't bother to answer.Anyway that thing with +R is too dangerous as I use mostly +R for the time. All +r 16x can't be written with the qualified speed?

I thought the consensus among people on this forum is that the BenQ drive mainly 1640 is more +R friendly than -R?.

Usually all 16x media can be written @12. Time difference between 12 and 16x is minimal

Isn't BenQ aware of this or they just don't do anything?

I'm a BenQ newbie as well, and while I was waiting on recieving my drive, I started the following thread after seeing all the different discussion regarding features and firmwares. Although the thread was hijacked for a while there, it was a valuable source of information for me. Hopefully it could help you out as well:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=152861

But I must say that I am coming to the conclusion that what works best for my drive and the media I'm using right now, MIJ Sony DVD+Rs (TYs), is the external firmware (BEFB crossflashed to the drive) and the default settings (in regards to the drives features):

WOPC: ON
Solidburn for supported media: OFF
Solidburn for unsupported media: ON
Overspeed: OFF

This is contrary to what a lot of people recommend in this forum, but my burns were coming out *very* inconsistent as far as quality when I used the commonly recommended settings of:

WOPC: OFF
Solidburn for supported media: ON
Solidburn for unsupported media: ON
Overspeed: ON

So hopefully you like tweaking and experimenting, because this is arguably the best drive out there *if* you find the settings that work best for you. For me, the default settings worked best but I tried many other combinations anyway. The only thing I changed after recieving the drive was crossflashing the firmware to the external's version to get a better burst rate. I'll be experimenting with speed patching the external firmware very soon (with MCSE)!

Enjoy!
-Tony

They use CATS systems to test firmwares, and in CATS scans this issue is absent. So they say that this issue don't exists.

Thanks Tony.My LG 4163B was excellent! till now. It started to giving me strange results the last days so I wanted to buy a new one.I have heard very good things about this one and finally after some months I've found it and I thought that 50Euros is not so much as I have bought 88Euros my 4163B.I've read the tests but it seems as with all other drives there are positive and negative things.
My Italian friend you think that -R for 16x will be good.
I use mostly +R and 8x.What about this one?

From what I've read, the latest (internal IDE) firmware release (BSMB) seems to be BenQ's attempt at fixing that preference for +R as it seems the main issues it aimed to address were improving -R SL and DL writing to make it perform on -R and +R equally well. Unfortunately, it sounds like many people are complaining about bugs with BSMB and are sticking with the +R friendly BSLB (or crossflashing to BEFB ).

It seems good to me. I also use many +R burned @8x. I burned some Taiyo 8x @12x with good results.

Anyway I obtained better results with +R media on my 1640. Not totally bad with -R media, but I prefer +R.

Everything is the same for me except for much, much better burns on FUJIFILM03. I'd say it's a safe upgrade if you're going to burn -R.

after my experiances with with FUJIFILM03 discs that crap aint going anywhere near my 1640's.

Many says that is better with +R and many with -R.
This is a very interesting thing to hear.

Everyone refers self experiences. All depends from the combination burner/firmware/media.

With the same burner and the same firmware also the same brand of media give different results.

The only way is to try and find the best combination

Do you think that 1640 can match 4163?

Sorry, I don't know. I never used a LG.

Tandi saluti e gracie amico mio.

You're welcome

Sorry, my greek is worst than my english

Can match in what way?

Quality: yes.
Read speed: 1640 is (much) faster.
Write speed: depends. The 1640 can't burn this fast.

Last time I looked TYG02 was quite dominant in the Hall of Fame thread, and TYG02 is dash media... I don't think the 1640 favors +R, I think it's about equally good with both + and dash.

Q.

Yes! That is the main thing to remember. I had built up some pretty high expectations for this burner, but even though it is not 100% perfect in every way, I am not disappointed.

The TY media I use is +R and rated 8x, and my burns turn out excellent at that speed. Not perfect! But excellent (97-99 quality scores, no coasters so far). I tried overspeeding them and got good results, but not excellent (those burns were 88-94 quality scores, with a couple of coasters). That was probably one of the unreasonable expectations that I had... That I could take my 8x TY media, burn it at 12x and get just as good of a result. Some people on here claim that they get *better* results burning 8x TYs @ 12x, but that definitely was not the case for me.

The 1640 got CD Freaks' Editor's Choice award in its review for good reason. But don't expect it to be perfect in every respect.

Just my humble opinion...
-Tony