Best DVD Drive (Philips or TSST462 or TSST632)

So I have 3 Dell E1505's here and 2 are going back to Dell. Each of them has a different DVD drive and I'm not sure which I should keep. If I had gotten a NEC I would've taken that one, but unfortunately I did not. So I'm left with these three to choose from. I've searched through the forums, it sounds like everyone has bad things to say about all three, so I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions as to which of these is the least of three evils... or perhaps you can suggest the best way to test them all to see which works best
TSST TS-L542 (original system)
TSST TS-L632 (first replacement system)
Philips SDVD 8820 (current system)
thanks for any comments!

 

I have the E1405 and it has the Philips SDVD 8820. I've had no compliants with it at all. It's not overly loud and its burned everything I've thrown at it.

(In my sig, it lists a second E1405 -- it has yet to arrive).

 

Hmm. My Philips sounded like an airplane engine when I used it to install Norton Ghost... but I just read that it can help to remove and reinstall the DVD to be sure it's in correctly and tight. I guess I'll try that tonight along with testing out the burn speeds.
thanks!

 

Sometimes my phillips runs very loud also

 

From what I understand there are a couple other drives in the mix.

- Sony
- NEC

Where NEC is considered the best.

 

Yea, I guess my title wasn't worded well. but basically I have those three in my possession, and need to keep one and send the other two back. I wish one was the NEC... but I've had no luck with Dell this year.

 

I think I'm going to keep one of the TSST Drives, I just have to continue digging through the forums and figure out which one.

Anyone have any comparisons or links to other posts/comparisons of these two TSST DVD Drives?

 

I haven't had much luck finding reviews or any other info on the TSST Drives. All I know is they are Toshiba-Samsung drives and have about the same specs... I have the 632 and seems to work just fine. One issue I've run into is that the drive doesn't burn at maximum speed. So far I've tried two disks. Maxell 16x and Sony 16x. The Maxell hit 4x and Sony 6x. Sony is supposed to be top tiered media, make me wonder if the drive is overly finicky. Maybe I should try some low quality disks and see how it does.

I was also advised to try TDK disks MCC variety.

Looks like I found the firmware update site. Apparently you have to use the liveupdate option for the drive to show up in the selection list. I don't know why they just won't let the user download the file directly.

Mike

 

Thanks for that link Mike, I have not seen that site before.
-Krugger

 

I had the 8820 in my old system, L632 in the new system, as per the above post, L632 burns a bit slow on some disks, as in at 40x rather tehn 48x say. But it seems to be alot more stable then my 8820, the 8820 made funny noises and bad disks... could have been a bad drive but a google search comes up with very negative results.

 

I agree. I'm gonna keep the 632 for now and if I have any issues I'll make them send me an NEC...

thanks all!