Are Rev D Powerbook Superdrives crippled?

AlBDamned · Jul 11, 2005

Ok, so apologies if this has been covered before (couldn't find it in the searches), but I've just read an interesting piece in Mac Format UK discussing the woes of the first Rev D Alu PB Superdrives.

Apparently, the original '8x' Superdrives in these PBs' are Matshita 845E models that cannot run at 8x despite Apple's claims and in fact, only run at about 2-3x for most, if not all, of a DVD burn. The Apple blurb states that this drive can burn 'up to 8x' but few have ever reported this to be the case.

The guy answering also says that this model of the superdrive has been dropped in favour of a newer 845 model that still cannot run at 8x. Not knowing how to monitor burn speeds, I'm not really sure what my (845E) version has been doing it at, but I know I seem to wait a lot longer for stuff on the PB. Anyone got a newish (last couple of months) PB they could check their model number on?

Edit: Lesson 1 - read something properly... I've just re-read the letter and it seems the problematic drives are actually Matshita 835 models which were dropped in May for the the 845 version. So this PB has the newer drive but it's still slower compared to the pioneer one at work.

Gokhan · Jul 11, 2005

hmmm

yes i belive some of these so called 8x drives cant burn at that speed apple tried ********ting people and said it burns at 8x for 15% of the time which again was bull so they replaced it with one that burns closer to 8x but is still 1x to 2x off depending on the pb manufacter date !!!

i mean my ti burns at 2x with a hack and my 1.25 ghz burns at 2x what the **** make progress apple !!!!!!

dswoodley · Jul 11, 2005

Everything I try burning on my 12in PB greater than 2x winds being a coaster

zen.state · Jul 11, 2005

that sucks. 2x is like 3mb a sec. 8x dvd burning takes me about 7-8 min. so you're talking 30+ @ 2x.

powerbook911 · Jul 11, 2005

I burn DVDs (fully loaded) in less than 10 minutes, in mine, and I ordered the day they were released.

Nuc · Jul 11, 2005

Same Here.

powerbook911 said:
I burn DVDs (fully loaded) in less than 10 minutes, in mine, and I ordered the day they were released.

I can burn a disk in about 8-10 min (full). My disk drive says: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-835E

Nuc

P.S. does the disc be it either +/- have a difference in how fast something is burnt. If I remember some of mine wrote slower than the other types of discs but I don't remember which......

Edit: I got mine the week it was released.

ericssonboi · Jul 12, 2005

Nuc said:
I can burn a disk in about 8-10 min (full). My disk drive says: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-835E

Nuc

P.S. does the disc be it either +/- have a difference in how fast something is burnt. If I remember some of mine wrote slower than the other types of discs but I don't remember which......

Edit: I got mine the week it was released.

What kind of discs do you use?
People have also said that the drives are picky on which discs they actually burn at via 8X speeds

psycho bob · Jul 12, 2005

Nuc said:
I can burn a disk in about 8-10 min (full). My disk drive says: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-835E

Nuc

P.S. does the disc be it either +/- have a difference in how fast something is burnt. If I remember some of mine wrote slower than the other types of discs but I don't remember which......

Edit: I got mine the week it was released.

Well my month old 17in 1.67 has a MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-845E.

I haven't burnt a DVD with it yet so I don't know what will happen. It would appear Apple have changed the model used though on the Rev D's since their introduction.

Nuc · Jul 12, 2005

DVD+R

ericssonboi said:
What kind of discs do you use?
People have also said that the drives are picky on which discs they actually burn at via 8X speeds

I'm using TDK DVD+R. Found them on sale... My next batch will be Taiyo Yuden probably.

Nuc

Nuc · Jul 12, 2005

So which one is better??

psycho bob said:
Well my month old 17in 1.67 has a MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-845E.

I haven't burnt a DVD with it yet so I don't know what will happen. It would appear Apple have changed the model used though on the Rev D's since their introduction.

Does anyone know which is the better drive??

Nuc

AlBDamned · Jul 12, 2005

ericssonboi said:
What kind of discs do you use?
People have also said that the drives are picky on which discs they actually burn at via 8X speeds

I'vve burnt all sorts on this one, DVD-R, DVD+RW, Sony, Imation, they seem to burn at similar speeds throughout. I still don't know how you can measure the burning speed though?

psycho bob · Jul 12, 2005

Nuc said:
Does anyone know which is the better drive??

Nuc

Well I can only assume Apple replaced the drive to answer issues with the 835. As long as it works I don't really mind I use the one in my Powermac when I need DVD's burnt.

Nuc · Jul 12, 2005

Apple discussions

I found this at the apple website link. It appears the DVD-R doesn't burn worth poo with the 835E model. I don't see why apple does this to people!

Nuc

AlBDamned · Jul 12, 2005

Nuc said:
I found this at the apple website link. It appears the DVD-R doesn't burn worth poo with the 835E model. I don't see why apple does this to people!

Nuc

Yep - there's certainly plenty of p**sed off people out there...

Superdrive · Jul 12, 2005

I purchased my Rev D in January and last month, the Superdrive died. It has been replaced with the 835e. I have no idea what was in there originally, but I know that it was slow before with DVDs. Since I have gotten it back with the new drive in it, I have not done any DVDs, so unfortunately I don't know if there is an improvement or not.

If they were changing the drives out for something else and the 835e is the one that suck, I would be disappointed that I didn't get the new one. Although, I am not too hampered with the current one inside.

Gokhan · Jul 12, 2005

k

yeah i mean what other company charges 1500$ / pounds what ever ,for a product that can not match its spec sheet
i tell u what apple may have to do a swap program or something because i would go nuts if this happened to me

Baldanzi · Jul 26, 2005

Hmmm good timing finding this thread. I was just about to post a new topic about superdrive speed/problems. In May I bought a Apple Certified "refreshed" model from the Apple store near me. Its a rev D 15" 1.5Ghz with superdrive. Yes its an odd spec. Apparently it was a BTO from the store...it was the entry level rev D 15" with a superdrive upgrade. The guy got to the store and ended up buying a 17" instead. I got it for a pretty good price...Tiger too.

I never get the option to burn at anything higher than 2x (iDVD or just burning data). I'm using DVD-R discs..... What gives? Is this related to what your talking about?

I guess I'll need to go home and check the model number of the superdrive...

AlBDamned · Jul 26, 2005

Baldanzi said:
Hmmm good timing finding this thread. I was just about to post a new topic about superdrive speed/problems. In May I bought a Apple Certified "refreshed" model from the Apple store near me. Its a rev D 15" 1.5Ghz with superdrive. Yes its an odd spec. Apparently it was a BTO from the store...it was the entry level rev D 15" with a superdrive upgrade. The guy got to the store and ended up buying a 17" instead. I got it for a pretty good price...Tiger too.

I never get the option to burn at anything higher than 2x (iDVD or just burning data). I'm using DVD-R discs..... What gives? Is this related to what your talking about?

I guess I'll need to go home and check the model number of the superdrive...

DVD-R works with the 845 but as per earlier in this thread, I'm still not clear on where you can measure burning speed?

If your one is from May, it should be an 845 according to that article. It will
still burn a full DVD in 10 minutes, providing all the data is ready to go. However, it is definitely slower than my 8x Pioneer Superdrive at work burning similar Data - probs by about half.

I've not really checked up on this since. You heard anything new?

zach · Jul 26, 2005

my 15" burns at 8x speed consistently (i've never failed a DVD burn) and rather quickly.

that being said, i have no burner as a frame of reference, as this is the only DVD burner i've used, and burning from Toast seems to burn much quicker. I don't know if this is an illusion, but get Toast anyway, it's well worth it.

Over Achiever · Jul 26, 2005

This is slightly offtopic, but I own a Rev A 17" Powerbook ... are the superdrives in them crippled as well? I remember people saying they were 2x drives but were crippled down to 1x but I never followed up on that.

AlBDamned · Jul 26, 2005

Over Achiever said:
This is slightly offtopic, but I own a Rev A 17" Powerbook ... are the superdrives in them crippled as well? I remember people saying they were 2x drives but were crippled down to 1x but I never followed up on that.

Yeah I think so. Same piece mentions that they were sold as 2x but were crippled to 1x to prevent overheating. There is a patch available to improve it, but it was never endorsed by Apple due to forseen heat problems. Seems they just get past it by saying something along the lines of, 'it could, in theory burn at XX speed'.

Zach: I think this is a dumb Q on my part, but where or how can you see what speed it burns at? I've also heard several times that Toast burns faster than both iDVD and Discblaze, but I've not had an opportunity to try it yet. That that could be good to look into.

Over Achiever · Jul 26, 2005

Do you know if the patch is still floating around? I wouldn't mind cutting my burn times in half ^_~

bammac · Jul 26, 2005

AlBDamned said:
DVD-R works with the 845 but as per earlier in this thread, I'm still not clear on where you can measure burning speed?

If your one is from May, it should be an 845 according to that article. It will
still burn a full DVD in 10 minutes, providing all the data is ready to go. However, it is definitely slower than my 8x Pioneer Superdrive at work burning similar Data - probs by about half.

I've not really checked up on this since. You heard anything new?

I got my new PowerBook in late June, and have burnt plenty of DVD-R & CD-R media. I have the 845E drive and although I use DVD media (Imation) that can be burnt at 8x and I have set the drive to burn DVDs at 8x in Toast, it NEVER does. It takes around 30mins for 4gb of data not to mention the extra for verification.

Considering I have the "latest & greatest" in terms of specs in the PowerBook, I was a little dissapointed in the performance of the Superdrive.

MacHarne · Jul 26, 2005

My Rev. D has a Matshita UJ-835E. I burnt a DVD on Sunday with about 3.8 GB of information on it. The disc was a Memorex DVD+R with max write speed of 8x. Including the verification process, it took about 20 minutes. I haven't done the math, but that is certainly faster than 4x.

zach · Jul 26, 2005

AlBDamned said:
Zach: I think this is a dumb Q on my part, but where or how can you see what speed it burns at? I've also heard several times that Toast burns faster than both iDVD and Discblaze, but I've not had an opportunity to try it yet. That that could be good to look into.

not a dumb question at all in terms of "x" speed. i have no clue how to directly see it, but i was interested in checking out burn speeds, so i burnt the same DVD image in finder and in toast, and toast did come out quite a bit faster.

Are Rev D Powerbook Superdrives crippled?

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