The Verbatim is rated at 2, 4, 6, 8X. The last disc was burnt at 4X, I haven't tried 6X or 8X and Nero doesn't report the actual speed, just the maximum speed. Decided to play it cautious at first. Will post my experiences when I burn at higher speeds.

Mine 700m came with Sony burner as well...
Had a lot problems with it... please read my previous messages in this forum...
Decided to call in and ask Dell for a replacment NEC ND6500A drive (Dell called it Wistron 8x DVD+-RW)...
It works great, no problems, no firmware updating...nothing...
Just slided it into the bay and everything is working...

If I were you, I would call Dell and request a replacment... best to ask them for NEC replacment or Wistron.
Sony's DW-D56A has a lot of problems, the best and easiest thing to do is asking dell for a different brand of replacment drive instead keep chaning firmware...
Just my 2 cents...

Got my 700m 2 days ago and also got the sony burner. I have recorded 2 movies and they seem fine. I also upgraded the firmware to the latest. Only thing that bothers me is that it only records my ridata media @ 6x max.

I too have the Sony DVD+-RW DW-D65A burner.  I also have the Sonic software that allows me to burn data or images.  I have tried several brands of media with the matching specs of my drive but have been experiencing similar problems in that when I install a blank DVD the Sonic software ejects the DVD and tells me I need to insert a blank recordable DVD which I have done multiple times with different brands and they are all brand new. 

When I look at the drive in explorer it shows that it switches to a CD drive after I insert the blank media.

I tried the firmware upgrade to PFS3 that was suggested in an earlier post.  It has allowed the drive now to format the discs which it wasn't doing before but it still won't recognize the blank media through Sonic and the drive still shows up as a CD drive in explorer.

Was the PFS3 the latest or best firmware to install?  I also updated the APSI driver and have seen no changes in this.  I emailed Dell my problem and they sent me a generic response for CD drives.  This was of no use for me.  Is there something else I am missing?  I have the Dell Inspirion 9300 and it is only 4 months old.  AARRGGHH!

One last word.  This is kind of weird.  After trying to burn a copy of an image to the media and failing, I got frustrated and left my computer on and went to sleep.  When I woke up, the computer had gone into hibernate mode so I turned it back on and it recognized the media so I immediately burned the image through Sonic and the product turned out fine.  Since then though, nada.

That's all.  If anyone can provide further insight it would be great.

Thanks

I've used Ridata and Verbatim media so far and these seem to work well with the PFS3 firmware. BTW, the PFS line of firmwares seem to be for the SONY DW-D56A burners used on SONY VAIO notebooks, the PDS line for DELL. I use NERO for burning.

I too have had problems with this junk Sony burner. I couldn't get the drive to read and burn on DVD-R(Verbatim) and DVD+R blank discs (not mention random game discs of mine that work on my desktop). I updated the drive with every firmware release and no change. So, I called tech support for a replacement and asked for an NEC drive and not the junk Sony one. The woman told me ,for some reason that I couldnt understand because of her accent, that I could only get a replacement of the Sony DW-D56A. Kind of made me mad. Maybe I'll get it and it will work. But if it doesn't can one of you tell me how you succeeded in getting Dell to send you the NEC burner instead of the Sony. I love my Inspiron 6000 but this DVD deal with me (and the thousands of others who hate this Sony drive) has ticked me off and it seems almost the tech support had no recollection of that NEC or Wistron drive. I have a 2 year at home warranty and accidental care. I don't see why the heck I can't receive the NEC drive. I've only had my laptop for a month so I'm dumbfounded as to why not on the NEC drive.

Message Edited by corbin101 on 07-28-2005 04:40 PM

Just got my new DVD drive and guess what its the NEC drive and it works fine and burns fine. So problem solved. Whew! *wipes forehead*

Message Edited by corbin101 on 08-01-2005 06:17 PM

I taled with Dell Technician's and they sent me a new optical drive and it was a NEC drive.  This one recognizes the blank media and is able to burn to the DVD's.  So much for the Sony DW-D56A burners.

Hope anybody else that has had similiar problems can likewise resolve them.

 

A short update on the SONY DW-D56A; I've burnt many DVD-Rs on the burner (at 8x and 6x) since my last posting. They all came out pretty good when tested with Nero CD-DVD Speed. It's strange but this drive seems to be getting better (burning wise) with age ... ;-). I only wish DELL would release a firmware that corrects the problem with media not reading in the SAMSUNG DVD-ROM (SD-616T) drive and perhaps other DVD-ROM drives. The firmwares released by DELL do seem to provide the best write quality when tested with Nero CD-DVD Speed on the SONY DW-D56A.

Hey fellas guess what? I have the exact same problem with my Sony drive! I have a i9300 and the drive started taking increasingly long, laboured attempts at reading DVDs. It reads CDs and CD-Rs just fine, and strangely it even reads the odd DVD (Reads Oblivion just fine but won't read Half-Life 2) but recently it won't burn DVDs, won't play DVD Movies, or read data DVD discs I have made on the same burner in the past, and others. When i insert a disk like this it spins and grinds away for what seems like ages, only to finally show the drive to be empty, or to give me extremely limited, laggy access to the data on the disc before invariably crashing the instance of Windows Explorer and forcing me to eject the drive before responding. I too thought flashing the firmware could be a solution, and found the same page listed on here:

http://codeguys.rpc1.org/firmwares.html#DW-D56A

I was already on PDS7, so I tried installing PFS3, it hasn't really solved the problem, which I am increasingly convinced is a hardware malfunction. The number of people on this board who seem to have had the exact same problem makes me more certain of this, it just seems like the DW-D56A is a bad drive. I've never been fully happy with it, even when it was working fine. It is labelled an 8x DVD-RW but I have never been able to burn at this speed, which is the issue that led me to this firmware updating game in the first place.

I plan on calling Dell and requesting a new drive (cross my fingers for an NEC one!) under my warranty, however upon trying to flash back to PDS7 (the official Dell firmware) the installer doesn't recognise the drive as a Dell one, presumably because the PFS3 firmware is for the same drives also found in Sony Vaio laptops. Is there a way around this? I wasn't aware how difficult it is to roll back firmware, I assumed it was likr rolling back the drivers for any component, evidently not. My only concern is I imagine Dell regard installing an unreccommended, unofficial firmware as breach of warranty, and will refuse to replace the drive. The drive had clearly failed before I did this, as I only installed the alternative firmware because of the problem! Is there anyway of somehow tricking the installer into thinking my drive is indeed what it is? A terrible Sony DVD writer in an otherwise beautiful Dell laptop.

Try this, go to http://codeguys.rpc1.org/firmwares.html#DW-D56A and download the PFS2 firmware, install that (hopefully it works) and then install the PDS7 firmware. If the PFS2 doesn't work try the PFS1. I've had this problem before and installing an older firmware followed by PDS7 seems to work. Good luck. Let us know if it works.

Hey thanks for the prompt reply, I tried what you said, and whilst that didn't work it made me realise that the bloody Dell firmware is right there on the page too! I had been trying to install PDS7 that I had downloaded from Dell's official site! So yeah, um thanks because I wouldn't have visited that page again most likely otherwise eheh. I'll let you guys know what happens when I ring Dell about getting a replacement tho as it's still playing up.