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Powerbook's Superdrive burns too slow!

C

cwright

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
My dad's powerbook (rev. c i think... only one revision old) will not burn any faster than 2x with 8x DVD-R media. The same discs work just fine (even up to 12x) on my dual 2ghz G5. Any idea why? Toast recognizes the drive as a Matshita UJ-835F.

My problem is: I came home from school for labor day weekend (left the G5 in my dorm room) and brought a video project with me on my iPod to finish here. I assumed the PB would burn as fast as my G5... and now I'm paying for it 🙁
It's 1:20am here and I have to burn 18 more DVD copies and deliver all of them before I head back to school at 5:00pm. Each DVD is taking 25 minutes to burn.

Is there any way to force this computer to burn at 8x in either Toast or Disk Utility?? 😕

Oh, and my dad has recently purchased a 17" iMac G5 and a Mac Mini. In his infinite wisdom, he decided to get combo-drive models on both of them. Thanks alot, dad... 🙄
 
I'm guessing you don't have other DVD media on hand. With my iMac the speed varies between 1x-4x depending on what make of disc (all labelled as 8x though). Man I can fell your pain. No way of forcing the speed that I know of. If there's a store near by, I'd pick up a different brand of disc and give them a try. You did click on the disc Write Speed tab and select best, right? Good luck
 
yea I made sure to check the burn speed tab... won't go any higher than 2x. I have some DVD+RWs laying around, but that won't do me any good. And neither will buying different media, as I'm using ProDisc hub-printables, and you can't buy hub-printable discs at Best Buy 🙁

I'm going to see if I can find some sort of firmware update online that might fix the issue. The PB Rev. c was advertised as having an 8x burner, right?
 
Beats the hell out of me. Like I said the sony that I have in my iMac seems to have a mind of it's own in determining which speed to write at. The UJ-825 that I have in my PB always writes the first 2 minutes or so at 2x, then speeds up to 4x. Every single f'n time. Sorry, no clue, but I know what you're going through
 
Got me beat. I thought the powerbooks DVD burner wasn't physically able to burn past at most 4x. I know my RevA Alum PB has a max of 2x... talk about slow...
 
cwrite at the mac site they claim that the PBs will burn RWs at 4x
SuperDrive (DVD±RW/CD-RW): writes DVD-R discs at up to 8x ZCLV, writes DVD-RW at up to 4x ZCLV, writes DVD+R discs at up to 8x ZCLV, writes DVD+RW at up to 4x
Click to expand...
so if you have some, it might be worth a try
 
Yea I'll try out my DVD+RW discs just to see if they're faster, but I need to use the DVD-Rs for this project since they need to be printable disks.

I stumbled across this thread over at MacNN forums that is about the same issue. Doesn't look like they found a solution though 🙁

I just installed Toast 7 (had 6 before) on the PB, and the new disc info tab it has shows the ProDisc media as only supporting 2x burning 😡 . The same media burns at 12x on my G5! This is so frustrating... I want to get these done now so I can get some sleep. 🙄
 
Yeah, toast is a bit funky. Here's a thread I started because I was having problems writing DVD+R on my iMac drive, though sony says it supports +, Finder recognized it as a writable DVD, and toast saw it as a 4.4 GB CD, and would give errors if I try to write to it. Toast is just a bit off. Anyway to get back to Toast 6 before tomorrow? Do you still have it on the PB?
 
Yea I still have both versions on the PB, but why would it make any difference? 6 and 7 both burn the DVDs without any problems... its just that they're both slow 🙁
 
Sorry, misunderstood your last post. I thought the discs were working at 8x with toast 6 and then when you went to 7, you could only write at 2x. Getting late, my brain's not working too well.
 
No worries...
I guess the only other option is to go down to my dad's office tomorrow and use the 5 G5 towers they have there to burn them... but that is the last thing I wanted to do. It's a long drive out there and I have lots of other stuff to get done before I head back to school.

Damn, I had no idea I would miss my computer this much over the weekend... 🙄
 
cwright said:
No worries...
I guess the only other option is to go down to my dad's office tomorrow and use the 5 G5 towers they have there to burn them... but that is the last thing I wanted to do. It's a long drive out there and I have lots of other stuff to get done before I head back to school.

Damn, I had no idea I would miss my computer this much over the weekend... 🙄
Click to expand...
Crap, if he has 5 towers what are you still doing up? You'll be done in half an hour tomorrow (plus the travel time), and you could be dreaming right now. I know what I'd do.
 
Yea I guess that's what I'll do. Part of me really wanted to get this stuff done tonight though, so I wouldn't have to worry about it tomorrow. Oh well...

Earlier I went out to a movie with some friends and was gone a few hours. I had Toast set to burn multiple copies, so that all you had to do was swap DVDs and it would automatically start burning the next one. Asked my brother to keep new DVDs burning while I was gone–got back and he hadn't touched it... 🙄

I should send a complaint to Apple about these drives... they obviously don't work as advertised. They just need to get rid of Mat-s.h.i.t-a drives altogether and replace them with Pioneer drives, which have worked flawlessly for me.

Anyway I'm gonna get some sleep... thanks for everyone's help
 
The PowerBook's drive, being a slot loading drive, is more particular that your G5's tray loading drive. Therefore the same media may not necessarily work at the same speed in both drives. However, have you tested your PowerBook's DVD burning abilities? How do you know that the drive itself isn't a dud?
 
cwright said:
I should send a complaint to Apple about these drives... they obviously don't work as advertised. They just need to get rid of Mat-s.h.i.t-a drives altogether and replace them with Pioneer drives, which have worked flawlessly for me.
Click to expand...

Won't do you any good. Apple is well aware of this problem and don't give a sh*t. Read this thread for more insight. The G5's will burn a lot faster than your PB, even if they are supposedly capable of the same 8x burning. I have the same setup (G5 with Pioneer and PB with Matshita) and the difference is clear.
 
Drive Specifications

Every DVD burning drive has its own list of supported media. You need to check on which kind of DVD-/+R media brands the UJ-835 specifically supports. It also depends on the media supplier, whether he is using good quality. most of the cheap 1-8x speed media are actually a mixture of media with any kind of speed within thise specs. High grade media like Verbatim mostly – but not necessarily – work within their specs with any supported drive.

I fitted my iBook with a Toshiba SD-R6472 8x burner and couldn´t burn cheap media in full speed. Also some TDK high quality didn´t work 8x, but 4x. With verbatim, it worked out pretty well.

Check if there are any firmware upgrades for your drive type available. Usually firmware upgrades mean additional media support, as new media speeds etc. are entering the market on a regular basis and the drive mechanism itself needs to be prepared to it. Old burners hardly work with new media anymore, e.g..
 
giffut said:
Every DVD burning drive has its own list of supported media. You need to check on which kind of DVD-/+R media brands the UJ-835 specifically supports. It also depends on the media supplier, whether he is using good quality. most of the cheap 1-8x speed media are actually a mixture of media with any kind of speed within thise specs. High grade media like Verbatim mostly – but not necessarily – work within their specs with any supported drive.

Check if there are any firmware upgrades for your drive type available. Usually firmware upgrades mean additional media support, as new media speeds etc. are entering the market on a regular basis and the drive mechanism itself needs to be prepared to it. Old burners hardly work with new media anymore, e.g..
Click to expand...


Answers are, no and no. Neither the type of media (it's all been tried I think), nor a firmware update (there isn't one –*yet but there was a speed busting patch for earlier models), have an effect on the Matshita Powerbook superdrives. The OP, like hundreds of people before him has found that his Powerbook 'Super' drive does not do what it says on the tin, but Apple refuses to acknowledge it publicly.
 
yip

yip almost all powerbooks up untill the very very recent ones could not burn past x4 for heat issues , i think although apple never admitted it !!!

They finally made the powerbook drive perform properly after the recent rev , so all of us who own a pb before the latest rev have drives that are crippled in one way or another !!!!

dammnnnn
 
Actually, even the most recent revision doesn't burn at the proper speed. I purchased my PowerBook shortly after the new revision was released; I've never had it burn higher than 1x, no matter the media I use. The drive won't even recognize DVD+R, only -R. This thread on Apple's discussion boards covers the problem quite extensively. Apparentl Apple has switched the drives on newer models but won't do anything about those of us stuck with the old drives.
 
This whole issue with PowerBooks unable to burn at their advertised speed is very well-documented. I like Apple and their products, but quite frankly I think the company should get the **** sued out of it for this fiasco. This is the reason why I saved $200 and bought the combo drive instead.
 
Noticed that my PB doesn't burn at it's rated 4x speed with 4x or 8x media. Burns at 2x. Oh well, I hardly ever burn DVD-Rs on my PB since getting a 16x DL burner for my PowerMac G5.
 
Makes me glad that I avoided a DVD-R in my last iBook upgrade, and just use a LaCie 16 x external! Boy, does that fly compared to my old 1x DVD-R in an older laptop!
 
CalfCanuck said:
Makes me glad that I avoided a DVD-R in my last iBook upgrade, and just use a LaCie 16 x external! Boy, does that fly compared to my old 1x DVD-R in an older laptop!
Click to expand...

I think if you're regularly burning DVD's a proper, fast, Dual Layer external writer is the way to go. The Powerbook ones are fine for the odd disc or two, but I don't think the idea is to use them as a professional tool in that sense.

They should still write at their publicised speeds though... 🙄
 
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