Redump Forum

wiggy2k wrote:I finally got around to testing my pile of plextors. (like ~25 drives) the other day.

by far the biggest failure rate was from the PX-708A and PX-716A drives that i had piled up.
100% failure from the PX-708A   (1/1 drives faulty)
50% failure rate from the PX-716A (3 of 6 were completely knackered)

but then again the one PX-716UF I have has been a really stable drive.

I'm, unfortunately, not surprised. I wasn't familiar with the durability issues of the 700-series drives until I purchased my troubled PX-716AL drives, but it's apparently a somewhat known issue. I noticed that someone added a warning to the Redump Wiki about these drives:

The Plextors in the 700 range that can read DVDs have firmware bugs and the lasers can go bad easily.

It's a shame, because the 716 was quite well received in its day, AFAIK. Even now, my barely working 716AL sometimes has more accurate C2 reporting than the 760 I use as my main ripper. I had multiple discs recently that exhibited no C2 errors but had defective sectors from the 760. The 716 reported C2 errors on the same sectors and successfully re-read. But, I think replacement lasers for the 755/760 are widely available, while nobody seems to be able to source one for the 716.

Hey,

If you can open up Your 716, and look at the laser head. There should be a part number.
Maybe it’s the same as for the 708.

scsi_wuzzy wrote:

Nextria wrote:Hello,

I know you looking for a fix in the UK, but for the PX-708(UF) i bought
a new laser aliexpress https://nl.aliexpress.com/item/32964380 … 4c4dT8bKnV

I can confirm they working great, i bought my 708 and it came with a dead laser,
Replaced it and it is working great again!

for 10 euro you can not go wrong.

Does anyone know if a replacement laser / OPU is available for the 716 anywhere? I recall a thread on MyCE some years back where several were lamenting being unable to find 716 parts, but I haven't kept up to see if anything has changed in recent times. I've two 716AL that are working except the OPU seems to be nearly dead and (more and more frequently) they decide they'd rather just not read anymore.

Also, what the hell happened to Plextor with the 700 series drives? It seems like my Ultraplex 40 will last until the end of days, but it seems like I'm going to have a bin of dead 716 and 760 drives by the time I'm done with my dumping.

Nextria wrote:Hey,

If you can open up Your 716, and look at the laser head. There should be a part number.
Maybe it’s the same as for the 708.

Unfortunately, it's not. Nobody seems to even know with certainty who made the laser for the 716. The part number is SRU 3541. There's a brief discussion about it on Myce https://club.myce.com/t/replacement-for … a/314376/8, and the basically the verdict at that time was that if your 716 needs a laser, throw it in the trash or keep in the closet in hopes somebody, someday, finds a source for them.

I've been avoiding 716 units ever since I learned that, as even if they have some advantages, I'd rather have units that have parts available. They're apparently also quite fragile -- lots of complaints online about how short the life of the 716 is. It was apparently even an issue back when they were new -- one person on Myce or somewhere else went through multiple warranty replacements on his new unit, as the lasers kept dying. That could be an outlier case, of course, but it seems like they're pretty unreliable.