On Firmware Upgrades - My Experience With Acer 6206A CD-RW Drive
Feb 17 '01 (Updated Feb 21 '01)
The Bottom Line If something works fine, think twice about messing with it.
Today I found out something I suspected a long time ago.
IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT
About two years ago I upgraded the firmware in my Acer 6206A CR-RW drive from version 1.2A to 1.3A. Everything seemed to be fine for a while… The data CDs I burned could be read on other drives, the audio CDs played fine in my Sharp mini-system.
Then I realized that these CD-DA audio CDs could not be played in my Mitsubishi Galant’s CD player. After I bought a portable CD player (Panasonic SL-SX270), I found out that it would play my CD-Rs only at 1x – with the shock protection turned off. If I tried to turn the A-SHOCK on, the player would make weird sounds and be silent. Apparently both devices had difficulty reading at speeds higher than 1x.
I decided that it was a fault of manufacturers, Mitsubishi Electric even asked me to send them one of my CDs for research, which I did. I wrote reviews on both Galant and Panasonic SX270 describing the issues I had.
But today I found that the CDs, recorded earlier (before the firmware update) played fine in both the car’s CD player and the portable one.
Another clue: recently I experienced problems with CD-RW recording, the computer would either hang or EZ CD Creator would report errors. I tried cleaning the drive’s lens, but this did not help.
I went to Acer’s web site and downloaded the latest flash firmware upgrade (version 1.6A). After the upgrade all problems disappeared, I can write on CD-RW discs again and the CD-Audio discs play in both my car and SX270. But the problems did not exist before my first upgrade.
Bottom line: In case with CD-ROM or CD-RW drives, do not upgrade the firmware, unless you have problems that you think the upgrade might fix.
Now I have to make copies of my previously recorded CDs, so I can listen to them in my car... And modify my reviews of Galant and SX270...
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dkozin
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