Program Memory Area (PMA) update failure when burning DVD or CD

I have tried everything for two months to fix this, except replace the drive.  The problem is intermitten.  I can burn one disc, and the next two fail. Burn two more discs, and the next five fail. It is truly random.  The error happens when writing the lead-in on the disc.  It usually says something like "Program Memory Area Update failure" or similar depending on the software used.  The disc becomes unusable.  Yet, if it gets past the lead-in without an error then it finishes just fine.  These are the tests I have done so far:

1. used multiple burning software- imgburn, nero, CDburnerXP, starburn, even windows built-in burner.  All fail with the same randomness and same frequency.

2. used multiple vendor discs- I am a business and had my vendor give me discs of every major brand.  I usually prefer Taiyo Yuden discs for their reliability.  All brands failed with the same randomness.

3. burn multiple files and formats- ISO, data, music.  The same file can be used (e.g. an ISO file) several times and it will fail with the same randomness and frequency.

4. Uninstall, reinstall, roll-back STPD drivers, RAID drivers, ATAPI drivers, SCSI drivers, SATA drivers.  I really feel that this is where the problem is.  I just need to find the right combination.  These problems seem to have occured after a Dell recommended firmware update, BIOS update, and driver update.  I think so anyway.

I have the Studio 435T, i7 920, 6GB RAM, GH50N 16x DVD burner (SATA), ATI Radeon 4870, 1TB drive.

Does anyone have any ideas or have had this problem before?  I dread calling Dell Tech Support.  They are a nightmare that I never want to repeat again.

If someone has a newer 435T and wouldn't mind taking a snapshot of the device manager with the following twirled down- DVD/CD ROM drives, IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers, Storage controllers- that would be a huge help (see a sample below).  I can compare to what I have now, driver-wise, and try to match it.

Thanks to everyone who can help me!