Guys,

I'm sure were all aware there seems to be different views of what seems to be the problem is it firmware or the actual manufactured flaws in the drive, after the original post, i had the .99 firmware, upgraded the firmware to 1.03, and haven't created a coaster, i've had the same issues as a all of you, burn a disc successful, but cant be read in the original drive etc etc...

All i can say is give it ago, i would like to hear from someone who has upgraded the drives firmware and have no problems backing up there dvd media.

 

Cheers

Perlance

I have to agree, I went thorugh (3) SDVD6004 drives before I got one that works, All with firmware .99.

Before I upgrade to the 1.03 firmware I will have to have solid proof that it will be benificial. It took too long just to get the one I have now, working.

The best advice I can give is; Keep hounding Dell until you get a drive that works.

Robert

    

So, just adding my $.02 -- I received my X300 with this SDVD6004 drive last week and have been making coasters ever since!  I'm not completely familiar with all the terminology, but could someone sum up in one post what things have actually been working?

My understanding seems to be:

Upgrading to Firmware 1.03 might help (is there a patch on the web?)

Hounding Dell for an NEC drive might be a good idea (Do they exist for my laptop -- I'm guessing that it is just a standard swap).

Anything else?

Thanks

Going to firmware 1.03 won't help, there is faulty hardware in the drive. A tech told me there were laser focusing problems.

I also had lots of problems with my sdvd6004 drive (had firmware 0.99). Only one disc out of 15 burned correctly. All others gave errors during burning, and at random places during burnprocess. Tried differant brands, differant software. At the end of the day I had even more problems convincing dell tech support :) I got the idea they understood the problem and do want to help, but were looking at ways not to be responsible for support (instructed by their superiors???). Probably scared it is gonna cost them too much money. But luckiy I did not need them anymore, for the firmwareupdrade to 1.03 (thnx perlance for posting the link) has resolved all my problems. No coasters since then. All the video dvd's have worked fine in my standalone. And data dvd's work fine on my Aopen dvdwriter. My Asus dvdrom player does not support dvd+r as it is ancient. Check out the firmwareupdate link perlance posted, it says there that some issues with dvd+r have been tackled. Good luck, hopefully you all will have the same succes I had.

Cheers,

AgonizingShark

I had a faulty .99 firmware drive initially when I bought my Dell. Now, I had a lot of trouble with it, as you can see in the initial pages of this post when I was first calling support. They replaced my drive really quickly. I got my new drive within a 24h time span of me calling. Now I was very impressed with that...

 

The 6004 drive, though, is currently underperforming. Now, whenever I use the drive in a burning capacity, my WHOLE COMPUTER slows down to a halt, and I can't do anything while it's burning - the burn is fine though. But the SPEED - it is going slow now. Especially in reading. It doesn't seem to be able to maintain a constant speed and fluctuates between 0x and 2.4x, whilst averaging about 1.5x. Now this is not good. The files aren't complex or anything. Once again, whilst doing this, I am unable to perform any actions on my computer. This is highly annoying. This is not usual for this drive for me, as it was working PERFECTLY for a while. Now it's completely slow and seems to have trouble with seeking info. The buffer is also being used FULLY. Initially, the drive would run fine, with the entire buffer not being used, but now, it sometimes even goes down to 5%!

So to summarise:

- Drive was initially fine

- Currently, drive is running slow, and inconsistently

- Drive slows down the system so much whilst it tries to maintain its buffer.

 

Now, has anyone else experienced this with a 6004 that was working fine? I will upgrade the 6004 from .99 to 1.03 (which has just become available) and see what happens.

Does anyone think that I should ring and try to get a new drive? This drive appears to be causing a LOT of problem. I'm sick of the Phillips drive. I want the NEC one - I haven't read anything about problems with that drive...

Thanks

I tried to burn my first DVD yesterday. The computer wouldn't recognize the blank DVD-R. After about 3 hours on the phone to tech support -- upgrading the drive firmware (version 1.03 is available from support.dell.com), rebooting many times, uninstalling and re-installing Easy CD Creator, all with a very green techie -- it still wouldn't recognize the blank disk.

Then I finally phoned back and got someone who knew something. Turns out I needed a blank DVD+R, not DVD-R. I didn't know there was a difference.

So I went out and bought some Maxell DVD+R and DVD+RW disks. They all burn fine. (The buffer goes down to 1% on the DVD+RW burns, but seems to work OK.) Now I'm into the grey area of reader compatibility. I have a DVD player and 3 DVD-ROM drives, and none of them will read the DVD+R. Half of them will read the DVD+RW though. Who knew things would be so complicated? I've been burning CD's for many years with no such headaches.

This blows.

Message Edited by boardhead63 on 10-23-2003 07:54 AM

Yes, I agree - the Dell eMail tech support is one of the poorest around. Which is surprising as it would be much more effective if they hired a support team to actually sit there and write up the eMails back to people, as it would take much less time.

And this is also very disappointing as they KNOW that there is something wrong with the drive, YET they try to get you to take meaningless steps to resolve it. It is especially annoying when they try to get you to do all sorts of software upgrades and the like, and quite obviously it is a hardware problem. If they know that there is a fault with the 6004 drive, they should be replacing them with any fault request after ascertaining that the appropriate steps have been taken - not doing everything from upgrading the OS, Bio upgrades, Driver upgrades and other useless things. The DVD writer should come out of the box, working...we're not buying Bare back systems here..,

As for tech support on the phone - this generally yields decent results. I think you can call out of normal working hours, which may help you out. Otherwise, you're right, You ARE stuck.

I am going to upgrade the firmware and see if that makes any difference.

Hope this helps you out a bit Mr. Gadget.

Well you guys might appreciate this story. I used the Dell customer support form to tell them about the issues I was having with this DVD writer and I went through excruciating detail on the steps I took to resolve my issues and their response was a link for newbies regarding loose cables, etc. Wow, what support! I am impressed! They didn't even read my message. It was suggested that I call tech support and get the issue resolved, but I am very busy and can barely get EMAIL's out between meetings and such, so unless a moderator steps in and assists, I am stuck.

TommyGadget

Charcol,

Thanks for the reply. Actually, I told someone else the same thing on these boards once. Calling Dell tech support at 3:00AM yields pretty decent results, I know because I've done it several times already. Problem is I am really overworked lately and don't have much patience for this "expletive which rhymes with pit". I am a professional in my work life and I am very demanding when it comes to my hardware. All my home PC's and servers are built by me. Laptops are a different beast because I cannot buy standard components and build one so I am at the mercy of companies such as Dell if I want a mobile computing experience.

TommyGadget

Yes, you're right. Lets just hope that Dell can muster up enough courage to help us all out.

 

BTW - I just upgraded to the 1.03 and it fixed one problem with my .99version. I can now run many programs in the background, whilst the buffer remains almost not used at all. I will try reading from the drive later and repost to this board when it yields some informative results.

Hope you can find the time to get a new drive.

Hello,

I have had the same problems with my Phillips DVDRW as a number of others on this Forum (mentioned this yesterday).  To compliment Dell support, I must say that in a relatively hassle-free maner they replaced my awful Phillips drive with the NEC one.  Unfortunately, when I put it in the mediabase (for my X300) it is not recognized by Windows XP.  I have scoured the web for drivers with no success thus far, and have no other ideas regarding how to install it.  Could anyone give me any ideas where I might fing the driver (FYI: can't find it on Dell site and NEC doesn't support OEM!), or any other ideas for installation.

I know several people on this forum have installed the new drive, so I would love to know how you did it.  It is possilble that the mediabase is somehow different, but I am hoping not (as far as installation is concerned).  Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

medgen,

NEC drive is exactly the same size, shape and form as your original Philips drive. All laptop drives are the same (or at least almost all). The only diference is the plastic cradle that carries them and the face plate. These are Dell specific and they are different for each Dell model. For example i8600/i8500 have one with the little push lever on the side. To unuinstall/install drive all you do is push the button, it pops out, then you pull the drive. When you insert a new one it just clicks and stays in.

As far as your problem goes, WinXp (SP1) doesn't require any additional drivers for NEC burner. In mine it was recognised automatically (along all other burners - internal or external that I tried). On the bootup enter the BIOS and see whether it's recognised there. If it's not check whether there is an upgarde available from Dell (BIOS). This shouldn't however prevent it from being detected in WinXp. Some devices that are not found in BIOS don't work in DOS but are happily humming along in Windows.

The best bet is to ring Dell and be patient. When they send you replacement hardware they also offer a tech to come out to install it for you (for free under warranty). Maybe you should give it a shot!?

medgen,

I also have a 300m with mediabase. Why not try this. Put a drive that is recognized by WinXP in first. Boot XP and in the system tray select the eject/stop hardware icon. This icon looks like a gray box with a green arrow pointing away from it. If the CD/DVD drive is listed there, stop it in Windows. Replace it with the new drive while the machine is still running and the drive should be recognized without any more problems. I just tried it right now and it works fine on my machine. According to the system, the drive is running via USB, not IDE.

TommyGadget