PowerBook G4 SuperDrive Speed Bump Hack

George Wright writes "A guy called cynikal has managed to hack the firmware on the PowerBook G4's "Superdrive" (the Panasonic UJ-815A slimline slot loading DVD-R/RW burner) to enable DVD-R burning at 2x (instead of 1x), DVD-RW burning at 1x (instead of it being disabled), CD-R burning at 16x (instead of 8x) and CD-RW burning at 8x (instead of 4x). Thanks a lot cynikal! The drive now reports as a UJ-815A instead of a UJ-815, and has a firmware revision of D101 instead of the DOC4, DOCB or DWDB the PowerBooks came with. A firmware downgrader can be obtained from the same place to downgrade back to DOCB if you want to, and there is a discussion thread."

Comments

I would use it, but...

[MikeXpop]

Non-official firmware things like this scare me. If it wasn't included by Apple, there's most likely a reason.

Caveat emptor. Even though it's free.

Re:I would use it, but...

[shaitand]

Not neccesarily, apple didn't make the drive ;) Those who wrote the firmware didn't build the drive.

There is a chance this could simply be a case of the original designers not thinking out of the box. Look at the C64 display and the amazing display enchancing hacks for it.

Re:I would use it, but...

[zcat_NZ]

OR there's a chance they intentionally downgraded it (or were told to by UL) because the drive runs rather hot at full speed (several people have commented on this) and this might be an issue in a notebook computer.

Re:I would use it, but...

[martingunnarsson]

The reason they disabled DVD-RW writing can't have anything to do with heat, or can it?

Re:I did it

[Kris_J]

"I did it and it didn't screw up my system" is actually fairly useful info, if the source can be trusted. No matter how many people post that it did or didn't work, each post is "+1 Informative". Certainly more informative than "I think it's stupid and you're stupid", which is what I believe you tend to see if you browse at 1.

Re:As if it wasn't bad enough . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple puts commodity hardware in pretty cases and doubles the price, but they cripple it, too? That's over the line!

a) Provide a pretty darn functional "do-it-all" drive in your notebook computers, giving people the power to burn CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and even DVD-Rs on a lappy. Restrict its performance slightly to ensure heat output is peachy. Consumers are gleeful.

b) Double the power (and thus increase the power consumption, and thus increase the heat output) of said drive. Consumers file class-action lawsuit over fried components and newly acquired lap-burns.

Think fast: You're Apple, which one do you pick?

Aren't We Missing Another Important Point?

[beporter]

Is it just me, or another seriously important point being overlooked? I quite agree that heat is of a large concern, having access to (and a lot of experience with) both a 12 and 17 inch PowerBook, but seeing as these machines are laptops, they are frequently not plugged in to AC power.

Admittedly, trying to burn a DVD while moving the laptop around is not such a wise idea, but power consumption (and by direct extension: battery life) might also have been a valid [marketing?] reason for locking the speed of this drive down. Of course, is it any more energy efficient to burn twice as long at half the speed?

Re:DMCA ??

[Erik K. Veland]

Of course, you should undoubtedly use caution when burning at speeds not recommended (and in fact restricted) by Apple: Use on a flat surface in no more than room temperature conditions. If you are extra cautious, you can purchase a cooling fan, put it in the refrigerator or heck, even resort to not installing this unsupported firmware.