DVD Drive Upgrade

Hi everybody,

I have Sony S480 and my notebook drive is “UJ-832D”, several days ago it got fail on heavy DVD writing job. I think the optical part of drive is crashed.
Thus I’m trying to find new one to replace it. The Sony service center told me that they can replace it and the new drive cost about 200$.
But I found better drive for my notebook. This model: “SONY DW-Q58A INTERNAL SLIMLINE DVD+RW DRIVE”
I think its better to upgrade my drive instead of replace.
And the benefits comes with “SONY DW-Q58A” is lower price (about 80$) and higher writing speed.
But there is a problem with face panel. I’m not sure that my current drive face panel will adapt new drive?

Dose anyone has done this job successfully on Sony s series?
Any idea?

 

wat do u mean? doesnt the new drive have a face panel as well? as long as the dimensions are right it should fit fine

 

The UJ-832D is an ultra-slim 9.5mm (3/8") thick drive. Most notebook optical drives (including the DW-Q58A) are 12.5mm (1/2") thick.

Sony NEC include an ultraslim burner in their new Optiarc range.

In my experience (which doesn't include Sony notebooks) the face panels all use standard mountings. The challenge is to unhook the fascia off the old burner without breaking anything.

John

 

ok man!
i'm trying to visualize it for you!
see here:

this is “SONY DW-Q58A”, i mean the new drive.
you can see the face panel of drive is flat:



and “UJ-832D” my current drive.
you can see the face panel of drive is not flat, it is curved:


closer look of “UJ-832D”:
see left side of picture.

 

thx man for info.
i made mistake regarding DW-Q58A. its thicker!
NEC AD-7913A is here:
http://www.chip.de/preisvergleich/85123/NEC-AD-7913A.html
for 94 euro!

but again i'm not sure if the old face panel is adaptable with nec?
any idea?

 

The test would be to try to remove the face plate from the UJ-832D. I attach a photo of a standard slim ODD face plate showing the hooks where it clips onto the ODD. I would expect the super-slim ODD to have a similar arrangement.

Your alternative could be to look for an ultra-slim slot loading ODD and accept a vertical front with a slot in it.

One check you should make before buying a new ODD is to look in Device Manager, ATA / ATAPI devices and see if there is one device on the secondary IDE channel running at UDMA 2 and no other device on this channel (see the attached for comparison). If the ODD has this IDE channel for itself then you have no problem because it doesn't matter whether it comes pre-set to master or slave in the firmware. However, if the ODD is the slave device on the primary IDE channel then you will need an ODD which is set to be slave.

John

 

Thx a lot john,
I compared the face panel that you attached, with mine. The eject button is not fit!
And I attached photo of “IDE channel properties” of my notebook. I think it don’t support UDMA2. So what can I do now? and what that mean in the picture?

 

1. The photo I posted was of the face plate for a standard slim (12.5mm) ODD. The ssuper-slim ODD may have a different layout but I would expect the face place to be held on by some similar hooks. The computer assemblers like standardisation between components. This document describes the standard dimensions (but I can't see what looks like a standard 9.5mm bezel) and shows the standard hooks. This Intel document shows how everything is put together.

2. It looks like the ODD is the slave device (=Device 1, primary = Device 0) on the primary IDE channel. Check if that is running as UDMA 2. If I am correct, then you will need to find a replacement which operates as slave. Or maybe you need Cable Select or Inverse Cable Select. Unfortunately, this is going past the end of my experience on this subject.

John

 

maybe u can find a replaccement drive on ebay?

otherwise it may be hard finding a drive like that unless u look for another laptop with the same design and try that

 

Thank you very very much for your realy useful information john.

I find UDMA2 on primary IDE channel; also I find another primary IDE channel that is UDMA5.

I read links that you have posted.
But generally I have a question:
Is it really worth to upgrade my ODD? Is upgraded ODD able to boot my notebook without change bios?

I really get confused! I thought that upgrading drive is easy as upgrading ram!

However I ran Nero info tool and attached a photo, would you please tell me what it says?

 

The Nero info is interesting. It is saying that the ODD is master on the Primary IDE channel and the HDD is master on the Secondary IDE channel. Are you saying that you have two Primary IDE channels in Device Manager, one at UDMA 2 (=ODD) and one at UDMA 5 (=HDD)? I haven't seen this before but it could be caused by the SATA setup.

Anyway, if the existing ODD is operating as master then you should have no problems with getting a replacement ODD to work. Did you find instructions for removing the ODD from the S480?

John

 

Thx for info,
Regarding two Primary IDE channels, I attached a photo of entire screen from device manager and Primary IDE channels properties.
Please tell me if any thing is wrong!?
As you said: “if the existing ODD is operating as master then you should have no problems with getting a replacement ODD to work”
You mean I can replace my ODD without any problem and without changing firmware/bios?

Here are some notes from this forum that you mentioned:

This is a classic problem with notebook optical drives. It is caused by the fact that optical drives can be designated as 'Master', 'Slave', or Csel (Cable Select), but unlike their larger PC equivalents most notebook optical drives have this setting in the drive firmware and it is generally not possible to change it using jumpers or switches.

If you search these forums you will find posts describing how to cross-connect some of the pins on the optical drive to change the setting, but this pre-supposes that you know which setting you need.

The other possibility is to Google for firmware updates or 'hacks' which may allow you to do the same thing although if you cannot get your notebook to recognise the drive this may prove rather difficult.

Unfortunately most suppliers do not advertise the actual setting of the optical drive so you may need to check with the manufacturers as to what it is currently set to.

About Compatibility:
Like hard drives, Slim CD/DVD must be set to either slave or master. Because there is no jumper on the drive to change one to another it is important to know if your system requires the drive to be set as a Master. XXXX and a few Toshiba systems require Master drives, however most use Cable Select-Slave / Master. Typically the drive is set to master or slave by the system cable configuration. If the optical drive is not configured properly, it will not be detected by the BIOS or you will get IDE #1 error when you start the system.

Are these problems will happen to my notebook after installing new ODD?

 

The two primary IDE channels is unusual, but it seems to work.

I think you will have no problem with the IDE interface because the ODD is not sharing its IDE channel with anything else, so it does not matter if the replacement is master or slave. I had this happen with my current notebook when I was sent a temporaty replacement ODD which happened to be set to slave when the original ODD was set to master. There was no problem because the ODD has its own IDE channel on this notebook and the ODD ran as slave with no master, but seeing the difference alerted me to this issue of the different settings.

Did you look at how the ODD face plate on your notebook is fixed on?

John

 

Thx a lot man,
Now I’m sure that new drive will work and no problem on boot and …
But regarding face panel, there are still some doubts!

1-As on this article that you mentioned says: “Although the bezels are not similar in appearance, compliance with specification SFF-8552 guarantees that these bezels can be attached to any interchangeable ODDs.”

2-It seems there is no problem but in this article “SFF-8552” don’t mentioned any thing regarding 9.5mm ODDs face panel.

3-in this Japanese website (translated to English by Google) says: “Because information is little, it is not to know clearly whether [bezeru] of some drive is GBAS”

4-and here says: “Generally slim type is the standard product. Those which presently have circulated is 99.9% compatibility.”

5- Here are some pictures of face panel.
But don’t say that it is 9.5. I’m not sure but if it is, the eject button and emergency eject button distance is not same as mine.

on attachment #1, I put a red dot on the picture that is my OOD face panel eject button position and yellow dot is emergency eject button. You can feel how much is differences.

However I scanned my ODD face panel and done totally measurement of my ODD face panel. (see attachment #2)
another picture of face panel is #3.

Any idea john?
I really get confused.

 

John!
One question!
I’m trying to find out how my DVD drive gets failed and why it doesn’t work?
I can remember that those days when my drive gets failed I was writing some DVDs but I don’t think it is the cause of failing.
It’s about several months that I’m pointing a 12v fan (with external power not USB) in front of exhaust fan of my notebook. Because my notebook is really hot and notebook fan is so noisy. And the 12v fan makes the notebook fan off all time. And 12v fan is not noisy. This is why I’m using additional fan. But several days ago, when my drive gets fail, I touched the DVD drive and I can remember it was too hot!
The story is here: The 12v fan just cool the cpu heat sink, and pulls warm air into the notebook. And as there is no exhaust, all part in notebook including DVD drive get hot!

Do you think my DVD drive gets fail because of heat?
If it is, then failing the drive keep happening for new ones again.
This is important question, because it may be cause for changing whole of my notebook!
I mean buying new notebook!

What you think?

 

Was your external fan sucking air out of the notebook or blowing the air in? If the latter, then you might be cooling the heatsink but making the rest of the notebook hot by blowing the heat back inside. This would not help the overall cooling. I owned an earlier S series and I remember that the HDD was kept cool by the air going in through vents by the HDD (and the HDD was covered in dirt when I came to change it).

It is possible that the heat may have contributed to the problem but optical drives are one of the most fragile and least reliable notebook components (and the UJ series drives have caused more problems than most).

The relatively slim design of the S series does make effective cooling difficult and the small fan has to spin faster and gets noisy (the smaller Samsung notebooks are relatively fat but it means that they have a quiet and effective cooling system).

Is your heat rated by the CPU or GPU. Undervolting is a very effective way of reducing CPU heat and most of the Intel CPUs will safely run at full speed at a lower voltage). I use RMClock for undervolting but some other people prefer NHC.

If you are thinking of changing your notebook then you might want to get an external ODD instead of changing the internal one. As for options for a new notebook, if you are happy with the 13.3" size then the Dell M1330 is getting all the attention at the moment (but Dell are having difficult actually getting them delivered). A slightly fatter alternative is something built around the Asus S37 barebones. In UK this is sold as the Rizeon S37. I would expect someone in Germany is using the same chassis.

John

 

And now to the face panel question. I agree that there is some uncertainty about whether it will fit a replacement drive but I would expect that it will. No sensible manufacturer of a new ODD is going to design it to be physically incompatible with whatever it exists. The computer manufacturers like to have alternative sources of supply of components.

Now you have seen the typical way in which the face plates clip onto the ODD, can you try to remove the one on your existing ODD? Also, can you try to comparethe positions of the controls shown on the photo on this datasheet with the positions on your computer.

John

 

Thx a lot John,

I compared this datasheet with my ODD face panel. I agree you that manufactures make adaptive parts but one thing is true! From right to left on picture in this datasheet it is first emergency eject button and then eject button. But mine is first eject button and then emergency eject button!!!!

I think I can’t upgrade my drive because of just its face panel!!!!!!!!!?
However, based on this Japanese web site it seems there are some another model that may differ.

Regarding undervolting cpu & gpu, I’m using rmclock, it cool a bit but my notebook is still warmer than normal! I mean it is overheated!

And regarding changing notebook, do you think it is worth to sell my current notebook?
It has 512 ram, 2GHz cpu, 6200 gpu with 128mb shared graphic and 60 gig hdd.
Do you think I can sell it around 800 euros? Or lower? Higher?
I bought it around 2000 euros, about two years ago!


And again thx a lot for all your useful info.

 

Regarding the overheating, it may be worthwhile getting the bottom off the notebook and cleaning out any dirt or fluff. Some notebooks can suck up a lot of muck in two years.

Regarding the faceplate, if you cant swap it over then your replacement ODD should still work but be recessed back from the front of the computer.

As for the resale price, I suspect that 40% of the new price will be as much as you could hope for after two years.

John

 

So, as I don’t like have a notebook without face panel, and as I will change my notebook in next few months, I rather to replace my ODD with same model and no upgrade.

Thank you very much for all your guides and advices.

 

John - Just to say thanks for posting the photos of the fascia attachment clips - just what I needed when swapping my DVD-R for a DVD-RW drive today.

Tim.

PS for anyone else out there, undo the clip in the right of the photo first, then the whole fascia should slide to the left, undoing the centre clips. The last clip can be really stiff, be patient! Good luck!

 

Some people may complain about you resurrecting an old thread but I will thank you for the feedback and comment. Those pictures in the thread are useful so I'll add this to the sticky thread so they are easier to find next time.

John