Overclock your HP CD-RW??

[Vic20]

I am intrigued by the letter which appeared in this months PC-PLUS Magazine an extract is copied below....

>>>. I bought a CD-RW early this year and, at the time, it was what I would call state of the art (within my budget, anyway). It supported 32X read, 4X write, and 4X re-write with an on-board 2MB buffer. This has done me proud over the year but, because 1 was making more and more back-up copies, it was becoming increasingly frustrating to have to wait 20 minutes to burn a 74 minute CD.
Then one day 1 stumbled across an article referring to my drive. it claimed
that the drive I had bought was actually a different, better drive but with a speed restrictor switched on. Obviously you would normally take this concept
with a pinch of salt, but hey, 1 didn't have the money for a faster drive and really needed the speed, so I followed
the instructions.
The instructions said to upgrade the firmware and switch the machine
off at the wall during the upgrade, then load a different firmware on to it from a much more advanced model. The top and bottom of this is, it worked and I now have a 32 x 8 x 4 with 4MB buffer and a burn time reduced to just under
ten minutes. I've not replaced my unit,
just changed its identity. For your reference, the company is Hewlett- Packard and the CD-RW information was a HP8250i and is now identified as a 9100i
>>>

I've trawled the net looking for more information about this but come up with a blank. Do any of you learned MURCers have any information about whether the guy is talking rubbish or whether we can all firmware upgrade various models in HP's series

Vic

[SteveC]

Ummm... Matrox Hardware? Methinks general hardware... KKKRRRUUUUUZZZZZIIIIIINNNNNNN!!!!!! Get you ass over here now!


PS: I've heard of this type of thing being done before.... but turning your PC off whilst firmware flashing?? I wouldn't risk it (unless you can afford a replacement drive)
------------------
Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[This message has been edited by SteveC (edited 19 January 2001).]

[Kruzin]

Reloacted to the General Hardware/Software forum...

[Vic20]

I could have sworn I posted in the Gen Hardware forum. I must be cracking up!!

Vic

[Greebe]

I do know of such things... not the HP model you are refering to but will have a look at my linkage.

Do you have a link to that info quoted above?

FYI I upgraded my Imation 4x4x20 to a Ricoh 6x4x24 last year

[Sisyfos]

From http://www.cdrinfo.com/tips/hardware_oc.shtml

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">- Upgrade your HP82xxx to an HP9100 CDR-W drive

"...The drive I have is (was) identified in Windows as a HP CD Writer+ 8200a. According to HP this is the only drive to use the 1.0g firmware update with. I doubt any of the other 8250i's are a 9100 but who knows for sure. The label on the top of my drive says 4x4x32x and was "Made in Malaysia" in the month of March. Someone posted that they had a drive that was made in Malaysia in the month of March but had 4x4x24 on the label. My box says C4464B as a product number. Be careful. Make sure you are working with the proper one. I have no idea if you could screw up the other drives with this method. Remember. It ain't MY fault if ANYTHING goes wrong.

Update the Malaysia made 8250i(8200a) to a 9100
1. Install the 8200_10g
update software.
2. Start the 1.0g firmware update process. (If you previously did the update just run it again.)
3. When the flashing process is about halfway complete, turn off your computer(Yes really, turn it off)
4. When you restart your computer you will see a window that says the firmware update failed. Click on the finish button. Windows(check in device manager) will now see your 8250i as a 9100.
5. Un-install the 8200_10g firmware update software
6. Install the 9100_10c update software and flash your drive.
7. Burn baby burn...

I do not believe it will work with burners my burner identified as IDE CD R/RW 4x4x24. The drive identified as an 8200a appears to be a HP 9100 with the burn rate cut back in the firmware. Remember: Your crashing Windows during this process. I recommend that you do not have any other programs open during this time. OH: I have not found a way to reverse this process. I bet HP wont honor your warranty if you update their cheaper drives for free. :^ ) - Sam Berown.."</font>

[Greebe]

Try this

[Wombat]

I've heard of drives running slower than they can, but to suddenly enable a larger buffer?

[Paulr]

This is not totally unheard of in the computer industry.
A few notable instances:
486SX CPU's were just DX CPU's with the link to the cache disabled.
At a time when the 3 main CPU's were the SX-33, DX-33 & DX-40 most companies used ONLY the DX-33 CPU and either under-clocked it, over-clocked it or left it as is.
IBM this year sold many ATA-66 HD's which were in fact ATA-100 units, using the IBM disk utility unlocked the faster transfer rates.
Following this logic, it is entirely possible that HP used a faster drive but slowed down with BIOS locks.
This I can believe, but a sudden increase in buffer size - my thinks no on this front.

[Wombat]

The 486 SX's actually had the connection to the coprocessor severed, you couldn't get it back.

[paulcs]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Paulr:
IBM this year sold many ATA-66 HD's which were in fact ATA-100 units, using the IBM disk utility unlocked the faster transfer rates.</font>

I believe this was done for legal as opposed to marketing reasons. I remember they were being sold as ATA/66+ drives.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Vic20]

Thanks for the links folks.

It appears I can't firmware upgrade my 4x2x24 HP8100i to its 4x4x24 8101i sister drive. I'm too scared to try it for now, perhaps when my drive becomes a bit more redundant I might give it a go. I'd bet that the hardware is identical in both models.

Vic