How is the 5239S?

[Bhairav]

How is the Lite-On 5239? Any good? I love my 52327S, but I need to get a new drive for a relative, and the 52327S is EOL.

[Gabe]

I have the 5238. Ok for media like Ritek, Plasmon, ...

But with exotic media liek my 40x Fornet it´s a real bad drive. It burns @52, high C1 and C2-errors. When I shift down to 40x the errors are higher than with 52x.

My NEC 3500 burns that media @32x with aver. 0,5 C1 and no C2-errors.

[SkaarjMaster]

Well, I almost ordered one of these from newegg for my office computer (SOHR-5239S). Since the 5237S is out of production and I will probably almost never need a DVD burner at the office, what CD burner would you guys suggest I order instead of this one? Most of the burns at the office will be data or data backups or disc copies.

[wicked1]

my liteon 52246S thats for sale in the buy and sell forum They are great drives and you can get it cheap. It was rated better than the 52327 for a while when the 52327 was new.

[Gabe]

The AOpen CD-RW-drives seems to be one of the best you can get this time.

[SkaarjMaster]

Which AOpen model would you suggest? Looks like this one has the latest firmware:
http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=2041

[Gabe]

AOpen have much drives with similar specs and names. Don´t know if every revision of their 52x32x52 is avaible in every country, but these two drives are avaible in Germany at this time:

http://www.aopen.de/products/cdrw/CRW5232AAOPRO.htm

http://www.aopen.de/products/cdrw/CRW5232AAOSL.htm


AOpen is one of the last manufacturer that brings new CD-RW-drives at this time, and they have a good FW-support. But it´s AOpen-typical that the drives won´t burn every media at it´s rated speeds, so it can be that the drive burns 52x at 48x or 40x max.

[SkaarjMaster]

That second one is the one I linked to, so I'll check that one out. Thank you.

[SkaarjMaster]

This is the only biege one I can find at reputable dealers in the US:
http://www.directron.com/crw5224.html

The link says 5224, but the site says 5232.

[Scour]

Hello!

I acn recommend LG´s CD-writers. Not very loud and good quality, also with not good media.

[Gabe]

This is the only biege one I can find at reputable dealers in the US:
http://www.directron.com/crw5224.html

The link says 5224, but the site says 5232.

Like I said, it´s hard to see what are the difference between some AOpen-drives, bcause they have the same specs but different letters like aao, aar etc.

[SkaarjMaster]

Based on replies at three different forums, here are the contenders (all biege):

Lite-On SOHR-5239S BG RTL >> $27.00
AOpen CRW-5232 Retail >> $26.99+
LG GCE-8527BB OEM >> $26.99 (retail 8526B >> $31)
Asus CRW-5232AX BGE OEM >> $27.99 (retail 5232AS >> $30.99)

[Gabe]

Based on replies at three different forums, here are the contenders (all biege):

Lite-On SOHR-5239S BG RTL >> $27.00
AOpen CRW-5232 Retail >> $26.99+
LG GCE-8527BB OEM >> $26.99 (retail 8526B >> $31)
Asus CRW-5232AX BGE OEM >> $27.99 (retail 5232AS >> $30.99)

My favorite is the AOpen, next is the LG (but LG don´t have good FW-support). But if you want a drive with quality-scanning you can go for the LiteOn.

Do you burn many CD-R? I use my 5238S mostly for scans, that means I don´t use it often. Read at CDFreaks that the newer LiteOn´s have problems with the tray-mechanism:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showpost.php?p ... ostcount=5

[SkaarjMaster]

Do you know if they fixed the tray-mechanism problem (MTBF of its tray and disc sensing) with the 5239S? Also, I'll be doing mostly burning CD-Rs at the office and no scanning and right now we have a stack of Philips CD-Rs (52X, 700MB, 80 min) to use. It's looking more and more like the AOpen (will be my first AOpen anything), but I know Directron is going to jack me with the shipping and handling.

[Gabe]

Do you know if they fixed the tray-mechanism problem (MTBF of its tray and disc sensing) with the 5239S?

No, I don´t know. And my hope that the tray from the 5239S is better than from the 5238S is very low. Someone tell me that the tray´s are flumsy when LiteOn begins to produce the very short drives. I´m not sure about that because the 52327S should be better and it´s only 170mm deep like the 5238/5239. But here I see a little different about the weight:

http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_p ... r5239s.asp
http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_p ... r5238s.asp


52327S:

http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_p ... 52327s.asp

You see, that the 7S is 10% more heavy than the 38/39S


I have a LiteOn SOHW 1653S and it has the same tray-mechanism, looks net very longevity.

[code65536]

It is my understanding that LiteOn has moved on to a new revision of their drive chassis with the 9S CD-RW drive (but not their 8S). I've never used the 9S CD-RW, but I have used their 6K combo, which features the same new chassis revision. The tray has changed. It's slower, but seems to be sturdier than before. The 6K combo is also a lot quieter, at least compared to the older 1H combo.

[dodecahedron]

how abut the (new?) SOHR-5239V ?
what's the difference between the 5239V and 5239S ?
http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_p ... r5239s.asp
http://www.liteonit.com/ODD/English/e_p ... r5239v.asp

the specs appear to b identical.
different chipset ?

the only apparent differenct can be seen in these pics:

5239S:



5239V:



the speeds sticker next to the eject button is missing in the V model.
unfortunately the link for the big picture is broken on the 5239V page.

[SkaarjMaster]

So, does this one have the crappy/bad tray mechanism or the good tray mechanism?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827106976

[Gabe]

So, does this one have the crappy/bad tray mechanism or the good tray mechanism?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827106976

Code said that the 9S-drives have the new mechanism and this is a 5239S

[SkaarjMaster]

"new mechanism" = crappy/bad mechanism? Just need a confirmation on this because I don't seem to be following this thread.

Also, the AOpen is definitely out because only Directron has it and the best I can figure is the shipping will be anywhere from $6-$15. Sorry, Gabe but they are just hard to find around here.

[code65536]

The 9V is identical to the 9S, except that the 9V uses a different laser (and thus a slightly different firmware). Same with the 6V vs. 6K for combos and 9S vs. 9SV for CD-ROMs. To the best of my knowledge, except for the different laser, the S and V drives are otherwise identical.

The "V" drives are newer. No idea if that means that they're better. I going to guess that they perform the same and that LiteOn switched lasers for business reasons (supply shortage of the Sanyo lasers as Sanyo undergoes restructuring? price differences? etc.? *just tossing out wild guesses*)

[SkaarjMaster]

So, "new mechanism" = crappy/bad mechanism?

[code65536]

So, "new mechanism" = crappy/bad mechanism?

These are my personal observations of the new chassis:

The tray has changed. It's slower, but seems to be sturdier than before. The 6K combo is also a lot quieter, at least compared to the older 1H combo.

So I think that the new chassis revision is good overall. Since this was just me playing around a bit with my cousin's 6K drive, I didn't do any sort of intensive testing, but the first impression that I got was that the new chassis revision is better.

The new mechanism should be present in the SOHD-16P9S, so you should be able to get an idea from that of what it's like.

[SkaarjMaster]

OK, I'm really confused now. The only thing I can deduce from this is no one really knows if the 9S mechanism is the same as the crappy 8S mechanism. Gabe posted a link to this review of the 8S at CDFreaks earlier in this thread:

"This drive is fine with quite good quality for recorded CD-R. However the MTBF of its tray and disc sensing is area for improvement. I used this model as one of the daily CD-Rewriters in my CD-R plant and some of the SOHR-5238S are quite easy with problem on the tray or disc sensing. I bought 6 pieces SOHR-5238S and 3 of them with problems around using for 1 to 2 months, so I stopped on using this rewriter for daily inspection."

Is the MTBF of the 9S tray and disc sensing the same crappy one that's in the 8S or is it better? I apologize, but I can't seem to confirm ot deny this from the contents of this thread yet. Thank you.

[code65536]

OK, I'm really confused now. The only thing I can deduce from this is no one really knows if the 9S mechanism is the same as the crappy 8S mechanism.

The 9S should be using the new mechanism, as I pointed out in my earlier posts. The 8S does NOT use the new mechanism, so it HAS changed between the 8S and 9S. The 9S CD-RW mechanism should be similar to the SOHD-16P9S mechanism, which you should be familiar with. Does that clear up the confusion?