DVD Burner +/- RW NEC ND 3450A Write Speed Problem, Please Help!

I've had my computer for a little over a year now and I have just recently started burning DVDS.  My computer came with the NEC ND_3450A 16x DVD Burner.  The problem is when I try to burn a dvd in Nero or some other programs, the maximum speed it will write at is 2x.  This is very frustrating as it should not write nearly this slow.

 

Here are some of the things that I have done to try and solve this problem, and nothing has worked:

 

- Update firmware to version 103c

- Made sure that DMA mode was active and selected in Device manager - IDA-ATA/Primary IDE Channel/Adv. Settings tab

-Toggled from DMA and PIO, then back to DMA

- Uninstalled the Primary IDE Channel, rebooted, and reinstalled

- Uninstalled the driver for the burner and reinstalled it

- Switched DVD Burner to Primary and set regular DVD Player to Secondary

- Downloaded Nero's Cd/Dvd Speed and ran tests.  The maximum write speed in the test was 2x.

- Searched endlessly through online forums to no avail

- Tried contacting Dell's Phone Support but since my warranty has expired there is nothing they can do (which is complete and utter c rap; Dell Support is by far the worst)

 

Here is some info on my system and some of the settings.  In the Primary IDE/Adv. Settings tab under DMA selector it says "Ultra DMA Mode 2".  Under the "Drive Properties" it is listed as CD/DVD drive just like my standard dvd "non burner" drive.  I find this odd.  In the BIOS my standard dvd player is set to primary and the dvd burner is set to slave.  When I load up Nero and don't have a disc in the drive, the speed setting goes up to 6x.  When I put a disc in the drive it goes down to 2x.  When I try to burn a regular Audio CD the highest it goes up to is 2.4x.  I have read on some other forums of people having the exact same problem.  Unfortunately none the info helped solve my problem.

 

Here is some basic info of my computer:

 

Dell Dimension 8400
Media Center Edition
P4 3.4 Ghz HT
2 GB DC DDR2 SDRAM @ 533 Mhz
256 MB PCIe Nvidia Geforce 6800
300 GB SATA Maxtor Ultra 16mb HD (added on)
250 GB SATA HD

DVD ROM drive "HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM"

DVD Burner_NEC DVD+-RW ND-3450A

 

I am just wondering if anyone else has experienced this same problem.  If so, how did you fix it?  Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this problem?  I would like to get this fixed so I don't go out or have to go out and buy a new dvd burner.  Feel free to ask any questions ( I tried to give as much info as possible).  Any and all suggestions are welcomed! 

 

Thank You

 

Jon