SZ160 poor DVD drive....

I purchased and recieved a Sony SZ160P and am in love with it but for one screaming issue. The DVD Drive is horrible. I am running into MAJOR compatibility issues with DVD +R disks. So far it won't read Memorex DL x16 or Verbatim x8 (unfortunately I have a closet full of them). I successfully wrote to one of them last night but then had trouble reading from it afterwards (it will read fine in my Wife's laptop). Does anyone here have this problem with their SZ? It uses the Mat****a UJ-832D drive and I found the following via google.com:
http://p200.ezboard.com/funofficialsonyfrm8.showMessage?topicID=4528.topic

While not wholely conclusive I am extremely concerned as I REALLY don't want to go out abut buy new media and reburn everything. Any input you can provide it greatly anticipated.

Winter.

 

Can't help with the compatibility issues I'm afraid but "screaming" issue is right.

Just got my SZ1VP in the UK (SZ180 elswhere I think) & I love it too.

But the optical drive - jeez - never heard so many beeps, buzzes and burps from a drive. Beeps when it starts up, beeps a few more times when you insert a disk and beeps a bit more whenever it feels like it.

Burn to it (currently making recovery disks) and it sounds like a rocket taking off. Seriously noisy - I don't think I will be watching DVDs in the quiet carriage as this thing would be easily audible over the noise of the train (seriously, I can hear it whizing, beeping and burning from the next room).

I hope it will be possible to replace this with another drive as I would prefer not to have it blight my new baby.

M1

 

Yeah, I can't even make the recovery disks at this point, It's a real shame but I think I'm going to have to return it. I just don't know what to do. What media do you use M One?

 

I did some further diging and it may be possible to change out the DVD drive. This one appears to be compatible: http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=861

 

If it is a super slim drive 9.5mm height drive you won't be able to swap it out. I don't know if the 832D is a super slim. I know the 832S is. Panasonics are junky drives. Might want to consider an external if you can't swap it.

 

I would but the whole reason for a laptop is that it is portable, An external drive sort of defeats that doesn't it? Unless you know of one that will take power from the laptop that is and even then it's almost too horrible to contemplate. This is depressing...

 

The noise is one thing, but the main problem I have with these Maturda drives is the RPC2 region locking on them. I have a mixture of Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs, from frequent trips between the US and Europe, and the region setting can't be bypassed without some enterprising soul hacking the firmware. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a reflash for this one...

All this does is encourage me to do is to rip my DVDs on another machine, or *gasp* download AVI/MP4 copies of movies and shows that I already have on DVD.

 

Have you read dvdrwservices.com? It seems many high spped media cannot be recorded well or at all on slower dvd drives. There are upgrades that allow 2.4x and 4x (the SZ is a 4x) drives to record onto higher speed media (8x and 16x). This doesnt speed the drive up, it just allows the drive to compensate for the higher media. I dont know if this will help but it cant hurt to check the site out.

Alos, only DVD+R, DVD-R and CD-R discs are recommended for SZ recovery discs. DL DVDs are not supposrted for making of recovery discs (you mentioned a memorex DL disc). I suggest reading the recovery disc PDF that is with your owners manual on the SZ.

BTW - I ended up buying a pack of Sony DVD+R 1x-8x discs. It was less than $8 at Circuit City. It seems like the recovery discs are be recorded at 1x by the SZ.

 

I've been looking around for potential replacement drives. This Taiwanese company does some 9.5mm combo drives - no DVD writers of that size, unfortunately.

http://www.qsinc.com.tw/qsi/Official_Product_en

Model numbers UBW-241, UBW-241G, UBW-242. I could live with an external DVD+/-RW since I don't need to burn stuff very often.

And in this thread there's a guy who's done the swap in the other direction (from QSI to Mat****a) on an Averatec laptop, with minimal bodging.

http://www.averatecforums.com/archive/index.php/t-2457.html

 

It unfortunately isn't all about just writing, I have approximately 150 DVD movies (I own them) and have backed them up and use the backups instead of the original to keep the originals in optimum condition. I also have about 15 DVDs with family videos on them that are now unviewable on my laptop. I did talk to Sony Escalations today and they mentioned that the drive isn't the super slim 9.5mm drive but a standard laptop drive much like the NEC 6750-A. Unfortunately they also mentioned that the bezel for the Mat****a is most likely incompatible and so would look a little off. I'm trying some more media to see if I can find some that actually works. Has anybody got a listing of media that's worked for them?

 

OK here is a list of what I've tried so far.

Verbatim DVD +R 16X SL: Fails at 3% and 10%

Memorex DVD +R 8X DL: Fails at 3%

Maxell DVD -R 8X SL: Fails at 3%

FujiFilm DVD -R 8X SL: Fails at 7%

FujiFilm DVD +R 8X SL: Fails at 3%

Anyone have any other suggestions? This was all done with the power cable plugged in and no other programs running. Sony thinks I have a bad drive but I'm worried that if I send it in for repair and they can't find anything wrong, that I'll have just screwed myself from being able to return it. As it is I can return it to JR.com but there will be a restocking fee as the OS has been activated. I'm gonna call them and find out how big the fee is going to be.

 

I've tried:

Sony DVD -R 1X-16X 4.7G
Verbatim CD -R 48X

Managed to burn the 2 recovery discs, but haven't tried anything else on the DVDs. The CD -R burned fine.

 

I used two sony dvd+r's for my recovery discs. And a cheapo ridata dvd+r to burn an avi file on dvd and it worked fine.

 

xprohx, what speeds were the disks?

 

Hmm, I was pretty sure it was 9.5mm but I can't any official specs anywhere - nothing on Panasonic's website or elsewhere. If it's a 12.7mm that makes replacement a lot easier... I guess the only way to know for sure is to open the case and measure it.

 

I used Memorex DVD-R 16X without trouble to burn my recovery discs.

 

you think it's possible that I might just have a bad drive? I REALLY don't want to get ride of my baby but I don't want to throw out $2500 either. Does anyone have any success stories regarding the media I listed?

 

The discs were 1x - 8x. You may have a bad drive, although I haven't burned enough dvd's to get any errors.

 

I used some Sony DVD+RW 1x-4x discs to make several backup discs without issue. Don't know if it matters, but they were version 1.2...

Javier

 

Ok so hows this for weird? One of the double layer disks the drive could not read before was suddenly readable for a little while. It was my backup of FireFly Disk 2, I also got another one to read for about 2 minutes then I started jumping the disk todifferent points when it stopped reading it again. What do you think?

 

FWIW - I had no problems burning a Verbtaim 16x DVD+R SL last night.

http://www.wretch.cc/album/show.php?i=UNIGO&b=2&f=1700711167&p=19

Shows the SZ DVD drive, though not really with enough detail to work out what size it is. The site provides useful pics should anyone else want to take their SZ apart to find out more.

Chris.

 

I'm finding the drive a little tempremental - rejecting some generic DVD ROMS - then accepting them later, throwing up CRC errors on others but nowhere as bad as you seem to have it (though I haven't thoroughly tested yet).

I just wish I could stop the thing making hardware beeps whenever it feels like it (oh and I too dislike the hardware enforced DVD region encoding).

Maybe you have a duffer?

On a more positive not - day 2 and I still love this thing. It's a gem of a laptop.

No manuals ship with it however (though I only dig those out as a last resort anyway) and the one you download is less than informative.

What the hell is this "TPM" system anyway? Is it for my security or is it policing my use of the device? I can't tell and suspect I have little use for it anyway (I thing I deleted the relevant software in my bloat purge so I may never know).

For a while I thought my bluetooth hardware was broken and was about to do a system restore (anything to avoid calling Sony support) when I found the wireless switcher in the sys tray.

Turning bluetooth on really helped

 

For TPM, read DRM. Thankfully, it can be turned off in the BIOS and is disabled by default.

 

Ok so it's weigh in time. I can either send the Laptop into Sony for repair or I can return it to JR.com and get a full refund. So whats your opinion given whats been said here in this thread? I'm not saying I take your suggestions as law but I will consider them.

 

To me it sounds like you have a defective drive. Not reading/burning media is one thing, but the behaviour you have described does seem quite odd.
I would go with what is more practical for you. I have no idea how long it takes Sony to repair a notebook.. Can't you just return it to JR in return for a new one?

 

I'm using ****py generic single layer DVD's - no idea what speed rating. They were burn't at fill speed (4x) on my desktop PC.

So far I've been able to read them all except 1 which also failed with a CRC error on the desktop.

So does sound like you may have a duff drive.

Thanks for the heads up on the TPM/DRM Jim - it's staying off.

My only other issue is that programs seem to take a while to load (slow HDD?) and, more worryingly, I have had 2 BSODs on reboot after a couple of hangs with MS reporting them as a hardware error.

But that's a different thread if it happens again.

 

Well I opted to send my SZ160 in for repair, now all I have to to is hope I didn't just shoot myself in the foot.