Precision_M50

There are no DVD writable drives for this model and will never be. Sorry. The M60 is the first workstation notebook from Dell to offer a DVD writable device which is also the same device as offered on the Latitude notebooks and some Inspiron notebooks.

Fleaman

Since Dell will never officially support DVD writing in the M50 (Dell does not support the DVD-R format), you pretty much have to buy a DVD-R/+R drive yourself and then figure out a way to install it into your laptop.

Physically fitting a slim DVD drive into the M50 should not be a problem since most slim drives have a standard form factor.  You just have to fit the new drive into a caddy or mounting assembly for the modular bay or fixed bay.  If you are lucky, faceplates are available to make your new DVD burner look like it belongs in your M50.  If this is not a major concern, then the faceplate that comes with the DVD burner will do fine.

Also make sure that the Master/Slave settings on the DVD burner will not cause problems in your laptop.

Dell made fixed-bay faceplates for Toshiba DVD drives for use in the Latitude C840, Inspiron 8200, and Precision M50.  I got one of these faceplates and slapped it onto a Toshiba SD-R6372 4x DVD-R/+R drive I ordered.  It works good.

I'm not sure if Dell ever made faceplates for NEC CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, or DVD/CD-RW drives for use in the Latitude C840; Inspiron 8100, 8200; or Precision M40, M50.  If these faceplates do exist, I would really like to get my hands on one.  Then I would go ahead and install a NEC ND-6500A (DVD-R/+R) 8x dual-layer DVD burner into my M50, which would rock.

Skuld

UPDATE:  I managed to fit an OEM NEC ND-6500A dual-layer burner into my Precision M50's media bay.  Putting the ND-6500A into an empty media bay caddy was pretty straight forward.  I only had to widen the opening of the caddy a little bit so the ND-6500A drive tray could eject properly.  The faceplate of the OEM ND-6500A is black, so it matches the M50.

Skuld

Thanks for the reply, where can I buy one of these NEC drives, checked around even checked EBay, but dont see them listed.

I'm in the UK so any help would be appreciated.

On another note I see you have a 2.6GHz processor in your M50, where did you manage to source this processor and was it easy enough to fit.

Many thanks!

Daz

Hello,

I purchased my ND-6500A from newegg.com.  The drive itself costs US$156 and you get 5 free DVD-Rs.   I'm not sure if newegg accepts international orders.  As an alternative, if you can find a ND-6100A drive, you can purchase that and firmware upgrade it to an ND-6500A.

I do not recall where I purchased the 2.6ghz cpu.  I went to pricegrabber.com and searched for "BXM80532GC2600D" and then clicked on a merchant who sold it for the cheapest.  When I do this now all I get is one merchant who has sold out of the CPU.  Intel has phased out the pentium 4-m 400Mhz FSB cpus, so it may be difficult to find merchants who still carry them.

Skuld

Hi skuld,

I see that you have GMA-4080n in the modular bay and DW-D566A in the fixed bay.  Would the Dell bezels for GCC-4020n fit GMA-4080n and CRX700e fit DW-D56A repectively?

shar-pei

Hello,

The CRX700E faceplate will definitely not fit a DW-D56A.  I'm not sure about the GCC-4020N faceplate fitting onto the GMA-4080N.  For the GMA-4080N, I just used the supplied flat black faceplate and put the whole drive into an empty media bay casing.  You may need to widen the opening of the media bay casing by filing.

For the DW-D56A, you could use the standard flat faceplate and stick the drive into the fixed bay.  If you want to use a curved Dell faceplate, you could swap out the laser/spindle motor assembly, rear connector circuit board, and the ribbon cable connecting these two components inside the DW-D56A with the corresponding components inside a LiteOn SDW-431SX, and then use a Dell faceplate made for Toshiba drives (such as the SD-R2102).  Apparently the SDW-431SX has the same bezel configuration as some slim Toshiba drives (up to the SD-R6372).  Works good in my system.

Skuld