Purchased this Plextor 708a 8x DVD writer + and - format from Silicon Group about two months ago.
I was so pleased I got this drive as it was suppsed to be one of the best - Plextor quality - ha ha.
Anyway, from the day i got it there was a problem. Every burn had rings on the written side. I thought it was bad media, so after purchasing many brands from cheapo to very expensive it was still doing it.
I contacted Plextor support and there excuse was cheap media, or faulty media.
I thought No this is not right. I then began to think it was my PC - so after hauling it all out and taking it to my dads pc to try it burned these rings on his !! Ding Ding - its not my machine it the writer thats faulty.
I then visited some forums online too see if there was a problem, mamy people say that it required a firmware update - off I go - updated -Burn - Oh look RINGS again - and this time the data cant be read back.
So I tried at 2x write instead of 4 or 8x and it worked perfect.
I got so annoyed with this drive and so skint buying media after media I took it back, the y tested the drive at Silicon Group and duly agreed that it was faulty...
Silicon were a bit dubious to exchange as they never had a Plextor drive back.
To conclude - dont buy a plextor until they have their firmwares fixed - forums detail that they are failing due to the firmwares not being able to control the laser power correctly, but they DONT tell customer this.
Plextor are basically lying to customers, as they dont want their reputation to drop.
Go buy a Pioneer or an NEC - they work ! Perfectly.
More details
Memory / capacity
Satisfactory
Design
Good
Ease of use
Easy
Instruction manual
Satisfactory
Manufacturer Support
Needs improvement
Speed
Very slow
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