Dell Latitude D630 DVD Speed

I hope this is the right place to post this, but I have a problem with my Dell D630.

I replaced the CD/DVD ROM with a DVD RW unit as I need to burn DVDs.

The unit I bought (second hand from e-bay) is a HL-DT-ST DVD +-RW GSA-T11N, which is supposedly a x8 speed.

However, on the laptop software such as Nero or Studio, reports it as a x4.

I am using x16 DVD +R media, which burns fine on my desktop at x16. I've downloaded the latest firmware for the drive, as well as the latest D630 patches.

Does anyone know how I can get the speed up to x8?

Thanks

 

Try updating the firmware:

Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States]

It looks like that drive is only used in the OptiPlex USFF, so even though it looks like a D-series modular drive, it might be different...

 

Thanks, but I am already at this level of firmware.

Any other thoughts or potential solutions would be much appreciated.

 

Just as a test, I thought I'd check the actual writing speed.

On the D630, Nero reported x4 and a write speed of 5540 KB/s, and a file of ~2.5 GB took exactly 10 minutes.

But I also have a Latitude 6400 which has a x8 DVD +-RW drive. On this laptop Nero reported x8 and a write speed of 11080 KB/s. Burning the same file of ~2.5 GB also took 10 minutes.

Very odd, but comforting. While the drive speed is reported as x4 it does seem to write at the same speed as a x8 drive.

 

That's very odd...I wonder if that's a bug that it reports 4x to Windows, instead of 8x. It could also be Nero, but in any event, there's really not much you can do about it. Since it's working fine, I wouldn't bother with it.