New DVD DL drive operation doesn't seem right!

[Clark]

I just installed a new NEC ND-3550A DVD/R DL drive and noticed something
strange while I was playing a DVD. The lights on both the DVD and the hard
drive flash constantly and both seem to be in sync (not exactly however).
The way the hard drive is being used, it will burn out much quicker than the
way the old DVD drive handled it. The old drive only blinked about once a
second and the hard drive light was very seldom on. It almost appears using
the new drive, the data is being transferred to the hard drive first and
then played.

The first thing I did was update the firmware, which did not help. Since
this is my first DL drive, am I missing something, or does it appear
something is wrong?

Thanks,
Clark

 

[kony]

I just installed a new NEC ND-3550A DVD/R DL drive and noticed something
strange while I was playing a DVD. The lights on both the DVD and the hard
drive flash constantly and both seem to be in sync (not exactly however).
The way the hard drive is being used, it will burn out much quicker than the
way the old DVD drive handled it. The old drive only blinked about once a
second and the hard drive light was very seldom on. It almost appears using
the new drive, the data is being transferred to the hard drive first and
then played.

The first thing I did was update the firmware, which did not help. Since
this is my first DL drive, am I missing something, or does it appear
something is wrong?

Thanks,
Clark

What are you calling the "lights on ... hard drive", the
case front panel LED? If so, that should be flashing from
the DVD drive access, alone, even if you had no hard drive
in the system.

As for why the new drive is flashing it more often than the
old, I would wonder if the access scenario is the same. For
example, if you were reading different sized files, or
playing a dvd with a player software using less caching
(thus more frequent reads), that'd do it. I doubt data is
beingn transferred to the hard drive first, unless the
player software specifically mentions this happening for
some kind of special feature.

 

[Clark]

What you suggest may be correct. When I play a music CD in my CD drive, the
light, labeled HDD does not come on. When I play the same music CD in the
DVD player, the light does mimic the DVD light.

The manual does say any activity on the primary or secondary IDE channels
will acitvate this light, but why do none of my other CD/DVD drives activate
the HDD light? Does this mean this drive is just different? If the other
drives are activating the light, it isn't that noticible.

Thanks,
Clark

 

[kony]

What you suggest may be correct. When I play a music CD in my CD drive, the
light, labeled HDD does not come on. When I play the same music CD in the
DVD player, the light does mimic the DVD light.

The manual does say any activity on the primary or secondary IDE channels
will acitvate this light, but why do none of my other CD/DVD drives activate
the HDD light? Does this mean this drive is just different? If the other
drives are activating the light, it isn't that noticible.

It seems likely when there's a very short read the light has
flickered so fast it wasn't noticible. Either that or
possibly your CD drive is using analog into the sound card
so the ATA/ATAPI transfer is limited.

 

[Clark]

Thanks for your help. I agree the situation is actually normal for this
drive so no problem exists.

Clark