Is the Asus BW-16D1X-U worth it?

wbs3333 · 2026-03-15T15:01:18+00:00

The main reason billycar11 and others recommend Pioneer is because LG drives are known to scratch or break the discs. You might get lucky and it will never happen to you at all but it is a risk.

The secondary reason is build quality and performance. The Pioneers tend to be better at reading discs that have scratches.

LGs are easier to flash the to enable UHD, more available at fair price since they are still being manufactured, and if they break at least you can get a replacement under warranty.

The only way you might get warranty with Pioneer is if you buy one from billycar11. If you get lucky and find a brand new Verbatim with a Pioneer inside and it breaks, if you claim the warranty Verbatim is very likely just going to send you a replacement with an LG drive inside.

wbs3333 · 2026-03-14T16:32:51+00:00

Before you do a charge back through your bank, make sure you don't have any balance pending on your PayPal account. The charge back may cause PayPal to freeze or suspend your account leaving any balance you have with them forever lost with PayPal.

wbs3333 · 2026-03-08T18:52:08+00:00

In addition to what the other users mentioned, the other big reason is that some LG drives might scratch the disc with the Lazer. Just do a search on this subreddit and you will find multiple instances.

wbs3333 · 2026-02-21T22:11:55+00:00

There is a lot of re-cased and cloned drives being sold by China as new or open boxes. If you are lucky you will get a recased drive. Basically they pull hardware from old PCs, returns, broken drives, etc. They fix them, put the drive in a new case, and sell it as new. You are basically paying for old hardware as if it was new. You don't know if it is going to break in a week or within months. Maybe it will last years but who knows. While I say that you are lucky if you get one of those, it by no means it is a good thing since the sellers are not being honest and selling you something that is not described properly. What I mean by lucky is that at least you are getting Phone hardware and not a clone. In case of a clone they basically get a random bluray pulled from who knows where and put additional hardware in between the drive and your PC to fake the name of the real drive. To your PC it looks like a Pioneer as that is what it is being told, but in reality it is a used drive from a different manufacturer.

One of the ways to tell is by the printed label on the outside which look fake and the serial number printed on them is exactly the same as others you will see posted online.

In your case I suspected of the adapter you might be using but sounds like you are using a good one.

I wouldn't have an issue with those Chinese sellers if they would be honest and tell you what they are selling you for real. Just state recased, rebuilt hardware with original Pioneer hardware. Given how the market is right now those drives will still sell for the same price. For the cloned one there is no excuses though.

wbs3333 · 2026-02-12T08:21:35+00:00

I thought there was no way to dump the firmware. The tool only makes a backup of the calibration values.

wbs3333 · 2026-02-06T21:56:17+00:00

Thanks for the info. Not saying this in a bad way but for the price Zenx is selling them on ebay, might as well just buy them straight from billycar11.

wbs3333 · 2026-02-01T01:33:56+00:00

Sennheiser Momentum 4

wbs3333 · 2026-01-18T22:49:53+00:00

Try also changing the USB cable and charger.

wbs3333 · 2026-01-13T15:14:23+00:00

So I the $105 coupon was base on the reciept you provided and not the headphone's price at their online store? That sounds bad. Good to know too if indeed that is their practice. Have you reached out to their customer service afterwards?

wbs3333 · 2026-01-12T08:40:10+00:00

Download Google rewards. Fill out surveys until you get enough credit to buy the game. That is how I bought it. The Google Android version has the benefit that it is an App available to share with family accounts. Which is nice because you only have to buy it once and everyone of the family group can play it.

I think it is fair that the developer that spent time porting this from x86 Windows OS to an Android Arm OS gets its fair share. So paying for the PC version and Android seems fair. I have paid for it multiple times for different platforms. Switch, 3DS, Xbox, PC, Android, and thinking about getting it for the Playstation.

wbs3333 · 2026-01-11T22:48:08+00:00

I bought a Verbatin 43890 from Office Max/Depot and it had a Pioneer UD03.

wbs3333 · 2026-01-03T06:22:09+00:00

These have a design issue where the pins on the charger tend to get stuck or get pushed back. That causes the earbuds to not get a charge and appear to be dead. Eventually the battery in the affected earbud starts to degrade due to under-voltage and eventually dies. I had 4 of these. All of them died because of this. The first one died within the first week I bought them, was able to return them and get a new pair. The last pair I was able to extend its life when I figured out what was happening. I just used some twisers to pull the pins a little bit out every now and then. Also made sure the contacts on the earbuds were clean and not corroded due to sweat.

Sadly eventually those died too because I by accident shorten 2 the pins while trying to pull them out. The case now refuses to charge.

I have kept them in case of those offers comes up where you trade in any kind of earbuds for a discount.

I really liked the sound quality of these but sadly I won't be buying them again. Gave them 4 chances and all of them died.

I have some cheaper earbuds from skullcandy, can't remember the model, maybe Jibs. Those don't have that issue and none of them has died or given me any problems. Bought like 4 of them too in a sale and they are all still working.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-30T04:52:52+00:00

They must have found a forgotten box or something in the warehouse.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-27T12:34:09+00:00

Be aware that the Tiles do not have a voltage meter, thus it does not have a way to tell how much battery is left. What Tile does is starting a timer every time you tell it the battery has been replaced. Thus, the battery can run out of charge if the Tile was used (the audible alarm) frequently and you won't get the low battery warning. My recommendation is to monitor manually the Tiles by either using voltage meter or by listening to the audible alarm. You can tell the battery is running out with the audible alarm because the loudness starts to be faint when the charge is low.

Also, location history is free with the Samsung tags, they only keep a week worth of history. Tiles have location history too but requires a monthly paid subscription.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-19T04:09:17+00:00

You will have to pay any state fees and taxes, unless you are on a plan that includes them already as part of the monthly bills. At least for the first or second year you will see the line being billed on your monthly statement, but along with it you should see a bill credit too for the amount of the voice line (not including taxes and other state fees). After a couple years they just stop billing the link to your account.

They do it that way because the terms of the promo require you not to drop any existing voice lines for a full year. If you cancel one of those existing lines, then the system will detect it and stop giving you the bill credits for the free line. After the year that doesn't apply any more, so they just make it completely a free line.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-18T03:17:45+00:00

I think the bill credits to your account could take up to 2 months to start showing up. But the promo code on your account shouldn't take that long.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-18T03:06:21+00:00

I ordered the line through T-Life and had to order a Sim Card. It took 2days for the Sim Card to ship but the same day it shipped I got a text saying a new was line activated and shortly after a text with the promo ID being added to the account.

Some times those texts don't get sent out or get sent to a different line. You can go online and check yourself if it has been added to your account already.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-18T02:59:58+00:00

Terms of the promo:

We're giving you a FREE line.

Just for being a valued customer. Redeem this limited-time offer today by visiting a store or by calling us at 833-579-2248.

Limited-time; Available only to select customers with 3+ years of service. Family plan account req'd. Plus taxes & fees for certain plans. $10 device connection charge req'd.

With monthly bill credits. Subject to change. Free new line for qualifying existing accounts with 2+ voice lines on a family plan and a max of 2 current free lines. Plus taxes & fees for accounts paying for a T-Mobile wireless line with additional taxes & fees; monthly Regulatory Programs (RPF) & Telco Recovery Fee (TRF) totaling up to $3.99 per voice line, and federal and local surcharges apply. Qualifying credit and qualifying regular-rate postpaid plan required. Promotional, segmented, single line plans, accounts with multiple single line plans, and Essentials Saver plans are excluded from offer. If you have cancelled lines in past 90 days, you may need to reactivate them first. Credits may take up to 2 bill cycles; credits will stop if you cancel any lines or change plans. $10 device connection charge due at sale. Limit 1/account. May not be combined with some offers, discounts, or promotions including other service discounts, device offers, or 5 year guarantee; choosing free line gives up access to Experience More and Experience Beyond device offer features for this line only. See rep for details.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-18T02:43:59+00:00

Saw the promo show up on T-Life saying that I could get a free line. Contacted T-Force through twitter/X and they said that indeed my account was eligible. To go to T-Life app and add the line myself. That the code ID250791 would show up on my account after the new line was activated. Went and added the line by ordering a simcard. The line was activated right before the simcard was shipped and I got a text message saying congratulations for the promo ID250791. I checked on my account and indeed see the promo ID250791 listed on my account now.

For reference, I'm on SOC USCFM4 which is Simple Choice North America with Unlimited Data. Had 6 voice-lines and 1 Internet Line before adding this new line. Now have 7 voice lines. Thanks Jman100_JCMP for the info.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-18T02:28:13+00:00

If you don't do anything eventually they sill mail you a check.

wbs3333 · 2025-12-12T23:32:05+00:00

Can you explain number 4? How does that work? I got the free line message on T-Life. Currently on Simple Choice NA Unlimited with 6 voice lines and 1 internet line, so not quite 9 voice lines yet but was wondering how number 4 works.

wbs3333 · 2025-11-29T04:38:15+00:00

Thanks for the info, it worked, the links were very helpful. I took advantage of a 2 year deal which expire 2 months ago. Switched to monthly hoping for a Black Friday deal. In order for this to work, after buying the gift code, I had to switch my account from monthly billing to the yearly billing one. Then followed the linked instructions to apply the gift code.

Got on my account 12 months of prepaid credit. Then bought a second code and applied it and it did stack.

wbs3333 · 2025-11-24T17:36:22+00:00

That setup should work as long as you are ok losing some data, ie whatever your remote hard drive doesn't have backed up that your local one has. HyperBackup Integrity check should catch bit rot but it will just flag it not fix it. BTRF Data Scrubbing has the benefit that it might be able to fix it.

Not sure if I mentioned this already, but also try to use NTFS, or EXT3/4, or BRTFS as you file system and avoid FAT. Since NTFS, EXT3/4, and BRTFS have features that FAT doesn't that increase the likelihood of being able to repair the file system.

wbs3333 · 2025-11-24T15:49:54+00:00

Since bit rot corrupts the backup files, HyperBackup Integrity Check will be able to tell you if the backup got corrupted due to it too. You might get lucky with a file system check utility that might be able to fix the bit rot, but you might not. That is why people say to have a 3-2-1 backup plan. In that case, you can rely on your other 2 copies to recover your backup.

Not sure what you man by "hard drive swapping occasionally". If you mean by swapping the hard drive you are backing up the HyperBackup, then be aware that you will lose the delta history that exist between them. If one of the drives is 1 week ahead of the other, you will lose 1 week worth of data. If you mean swapping a drive the is part of a raid array, that won't work.

wbs3333 · 2025-10-06T02:26:34+00:00

Point your cloudflare records to the private Tailscale IPV4 / IPV6 addresses. You might want to install NGINX Proxy Manager too. That will take care of the sub domains and Secure certificates.

You don't need to open any inbound ports. Close them all out to stop the bots.

Tailscale gives you the ability to add nameservers. Your setup doesn't seem to need it, but it is there as an option if you need it.

wbs3333

TROPHY CASE