Hi Folks,

I just came about the question if there is any reliable resource known to you where I can find out what kind of writing strategy (e.g. laser power, pulse width) is used for certain CDR types (dye/reflector) to determine which kind of media is suited best to save my burner's laser diode from unnecessary wear ... sorry if this has already been answered, but a search didn't get me matching results ... (or maybe I am just blind)

Semiconductor laser diodes at relatively eye-safe powers used in consumer applications don't really suffer an awful lot of wear out. You might damage the lens surface by using a 'cleaning' CD, but the laser diode itself, once it is burned in (to screen out 'infant mortality' with a few hours of heavy drive), should be quite reliable.

They can be killed by electrostatic discharge (not likely once installed), by excessive reverse bias (applying negative voltage over about 2 V) or by large current spikes from badly regulated dc current supply circuits. Soft turn-on circuits etc usually prevent the latter type of damage. Adequate heatsinking is usually provided by the CD-header laser can design to ensure it doesn't overheat. If it got too hot it would stop producing enough light, even when new (threshold current rises, slope efficiency drops), so the design would have to cope with the thermal load OK for it to work at all.

As such, if a laser really dies during the product life, it's most likely a random failure (they're rare but they do happen) and can't be predicted on individual basis, or it's induced by a power spike that wasn't smoothed out by the laser driver circuit, or the circuit design wasn't good enough. Perhaps a reported "laser failure" was actually caused by a dry solder joint on the driver circuit board or maybe even a failure of the mechanical servo mechanism that moves the lens to keep the laser spot focussed on the disc. Mechanical shock could also cause the laser wirebond to detach. In most of these cases, the only economically viable solution is replacement.

Personally, once I've bought a writer I wouldn't worry about trying to protect a laser from failure apart from normal precautions (avoid dropping the CD writer onto concrete etc!). Failure modes from normal use are very long term and sporadic (bad luck). Perhaps more common is the power surge that the circuit design doesn't protect you from (e.g. induction from nearby lightning strike - that wiped out a 28.8 modem and a COM port controller on an old PC) or mechanical damage (e.g. vibration-induced) to the lens servo or the laser driver circuit.

I seem to recall you stating you had a laser fail in the past, JeanLuc. I'd put it down to bad luck (random failure) or possibly bad design in the writer, rather than your usage pattern (which I'm sure is heavy). Have we heard of many other cases here or on the EAC forums, for example? I don't think so. Lasers for consumer apps maybe less intensely qualified than those for comms (where it costs a lot if a line goes down thanks to a failure at a remote node), but they're still very reliable compared to the mechanical parts, which I'd be much more worried about in a burner. Also, given upgrade cycles, 20 year expected life isn't necessary.

I had 3 burners died, so I do not think that failures are sporadic. (jvc, philips, panasonic)

When I am buying a new burner, it's because the old one died.

Yes, there are quite some drives reported dead. Two or three have even complained that EAC killed their drive after hours of error correction.

I had an Artec CD ROM drive dead, but it had nothing to do with the optical part. The spinning engine just wouldn't start, unless I hit the drive the very instant the tray is closed, what a friend found hilarous (...inserting CD...closing tray...BING ! BANG ! BONK ! ...CD is recognized). My Yamaha 6416S died too, but I don't know why. It would just not recognize the presence of any medium. It can have been optical related.

When your drive (reader or burner) does not work, you can easily try to "restore" it.
In fact it seems (at least in my cases) that the first cause is dust in the mechanical parts.

Just open the drive, remove all the old dirty grease (specially on the tray mechanism). Then put some new grease on the moving parts.
Usually drives work much better after.

But after a few cleaning, this does not work anymore. It probably might be an indication that something else is damaged.

I must say that neither of these brands are known for exceptional reliability of their burners

Because you didn't use LiteON

Maybe I did not used LiteOn because the popularity of this brand is not that old?
My JVC (which died after 3 months) was a 1x, my Philips a 2x and my Panasonic a 4x.
Right now I am using some 8x (HP and Teac)

I suspect that mechanical failures are far, far more common than laser failures, though I have no data to back this up. This is getting away from the original question which was about writing power on different CD-R media.

I'd be slightly more inclined to expect that EAC secure mode creates more mechanical wearout than accurate-streaming Burst Mode Test & Copy (and so would random file access on CD-ROMs and UDF CD-RWs), I'd imagine. Also, those who read a lot of error-filled CDs (e.g. scratched) where parts need to be read 64 times or something in secure mode, may well have more frequent failures. Readers that happen to be better at reading bad disks may need fewer reads to do so, so need less repositioning and work faster.

This is all conjecture though. It's very hard to know which current models are most robust or most failure-prone without a large body of heavy users reporting before the model is discontinued. Then again some burners are now so cheap that they're almost disposable items for which you can keep a spare at the ready.

Sometimes, what might be perceived as a laser failure can be attributed to the distance that the CD sits from the laser. In one experience that I had (with an old drive - probably a 24X CD-Rom...), it became harder and harder for the drive to recognize inserted CDs , and when it did read the CDs, it would take forever to access the data. I opened up the drive, and slightly bent the arm that holds the center part of the CD by pushing it down to make the CD closer to the laser (It was on the top of the drive and applied pressure to the CD to keep it from spinning into space.) Problem solved - it was like the drive was new again. My guess is that the arm was bent up over time from wear, making the CD-to-Laser length out of spec. I have also had experiences with older AT type power supplies killing CD-Rom after CD-Rom. I had one computer that killed about 6 different drives over the span of about 2 years, and later fried the motherboard. Looking back, this was surely caused by turning the computer on and off constantly, 2-3 times a day or possibly more, and in conjunction with a crappy 230w PS, this killed off the components. Now that I leave my systems on for days at a time and use ATX soft-on PS units, I go through one CD-Rom about once every 3 years, and that's because I want a faster one . Hope this info helps.

It might well be. I once drag'n'dropped the content of a CD ROM to my hard drive. The filesystem had about 5000 files.
It took more than half an hour and the drive was constantly making ta-klak-ta-klak-ta-klak noises !

When is it appropriate to use a cleaning CD, if you risk damaging your drive by doing so?

That's easily answered ... never !

I would rather open my drive and clean the lens with some smooth brush (and purified 2-propanol if the lens is dirty by nicotine or something) ...

On the cleaning CDs, it is written "never use in CD recorders".

I thought is was interesting that the life expectancy was listed on the box of my Memorex approx 70,000 hours. I would more or less translate 70,000 hours into 2 to 4 years depending on the type of usage the drive will be subjected to which will be much less now since all my audio CD's have been ripped.

The thing that killed by Toshiba DVD drive which lasted 5 years doing mostly DAE was the tray which wouldn't stay closed, it would automatically open.