NEC ND-3520A – Modified vs. stock firmware

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Jan70
Senior Administrator: Article posted 30 Jan 05 17:36

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Introduction

Review: Dee’s vs. stock firmware
Reviewer: Jan70 & Dee-27
Provided by: CDFreaks.com
Firmware: 1.04 & LD3520 beta 3 preview

In the following mini-preview we are going to compare Dee’s firmware versus the NEC stock firmware for the NEC ND-3520 DVD writer. Since the testing drives are provided by CDFreaks.com – we are going to skip NEC’s company information.

Drive specifications:

The listed specification of this drive was found on the NEC website:

NEC ND-3520A with LD3520 Beta 3 preview firmware.

NEC ND-3520A With Stock V1.04 firmware.

Test machines:

For this review we will be using computers with the following configuration:

Hardware PC #1:

Motherboard: ECS Elitegroup N2U400-A with Nvidia nForce 2 Ultra-400 and nForce MCP chipset.
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton) 333 MHz FSB.
RAM: 1 GB Infineon PC2700 DDR
GFX: ATI Radeon 9600 XT
Sound: SoundBlaster Audigy
Hard disk: Samsung SP1614N 160 GB.

System set-up:

NEC ND-3520A with Stock Firmware

Hardware PC #2:

Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Rev.2 with Nvidia NForce 2 chipset.
Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2800+
RAM: 1 GB Samsung PC2700 DDR
GFX: ATI All In Wonder Radeon 8500 DV
Hard disks: 2x Maxtor 120 GB Raid 0 SATA

System set-up:

NEC ND-3520A with Modified Firmware

Software:

Windows XP professional is installed on both PC’s along with Service Pack 2 for windows XP. We will be using the following software in this review:

Now it’s time to take a closer look at the write technology used by the NEC ND-3520A:

CD-Recordable:

The NEC ND-3520A uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 48X. This gives an average speed of 36.39x.

CD-Rewritable:

The NEC ND-3520A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its rated speed of 24x, this gives an average speed of 23.68x.

DVD+Recordable:

The NEC ND-3520A uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD+R at 16x. The average speed is 11.77x and total writing time is 5 minutes and 56 seconds.

DVD-Recordable:

The NEC ND-3520A uses CAV, (Constant Angular Velocity) to write DVD-R at 16x. The average speed is 11.75x and total writing time is 5 minutes and 42 seconds.

DVD+ReWritable:

The NEC ND-3520A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 8x. The drive wrote the last zone at 8.27X and this gives an average speed of 7.99x.

DVD-ReWritable:

The NEC ND-3520A uses Z-CLV, (Zone-Constant Linear Velocity), to write at its maximum speed of 6x. The drive wrote the last zone at 6.20X and this gives an average speed of 5.79x.

On the next page you read some basic facts about modified firmware…..

Facts - Modified firmware

11 Comments

arcticice: Posts: 13; Posted on: 06 Jun 04 17:09

stick with AnyDVD!

BoSkin: Posts: 5606; Posted on: 30 Jan 05 23:41

"...in most cases the STOCK firmware has the edge on quality, showing fewer errors on a burned media." To me, this is the most important thing, in other words this is what counts, not, let's say, the like 0,37% write speed gain and kinda "saved" 7-8 seconds. Mostly, I have something else to do when burning stuff. :g

Mender: Posts: 329; Posted on: 03 Feb 05 00:50

An excellent comparison article. This is the sort of information I like to see

Zim33: Posts: 1; Posted on: 12 Feb 05 05:21

Great info, but I'd also like to see data READ capability compared, too.

J37HR0: Posts: 176; Posted on: 17 Feb 05 01:27

Thank you so much for this comparison. I really liked the side by side comparisons. Excellent Job.

danbo: Posts: 2; Posted on: 19 Feb 05 05:55

"...in most cases the STOCK firmware has the edge on quality, showing fewer errors on a burned media." "To me, this is the most important thing, " Some of us actually CARE about bitsetting! :d

RaHzElChO: Posts: 53; Posted on: 10 Jun 05 16:53

012: Posts: 138; Posted on: 22 Jan 07 20:14

don't use it. simple piece of garbage

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 20 Apr 07 09:46

my nec3520a works excelent now. i tried burning dvd-r at 16x and it works excelent. before i had problems. i tried for the first time to write one image of 7.5 gb on one dvd+r dl verbatim. on read test it did not make it. sugestions? :r

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 29 Aug 07 19:52

Anydvd is best...plus this program is not updated anymore

guest: Posts: 15288; Posted on: 21 Sep 08 21:58

gaarne downloden voor 3520A1.04

NEC ND-3520A – Modified vs. stock firmware

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