Hi everyone,


I have a philips sdvd8821 (aka NU SDW086, QSI SDW-086) dvd drive in my notebook (acer 5600 series) and am certain the firmware is very old and I am having trouble finding any firmware at all for it. I had a similar philips drive in my old notebook and can remember finding some very obscure site to get the firmware from and it was a hell of a lot newer than what was on the drive. I am eager to upgrade the firmware for the media support. If someone could point me in the right direction I would be very grateful.

thanks

Hi I'm having problems with mine as well. I have the same notebook, only bought it a few weeks ago. Writes CD & DVD occasionally. Have thrown more discs away than I've had good writes. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi,As your notebook is a new one, then contact your vendor or manufacturer support. Don't try to flash any firmware (if there is any), a new drive must work out-of-the-box.

Michael

Nearly forgotten: Welcome @CDF

Ok. Thanks for the quick reply.

Chris

c.hub I had found that a lot of burning errors could be attributed to the awful acer empowering technology power management software setting the processor to work in "LOW" speed mode @ around 600mhz, changing the maximum performance (on ac power) profile to cpu speed = MAX seems to solve this remember to click save, or apply though.

mchihel - I disagree I'm afraid, the drive may not have the latest firmware to tell it how to handle the media, as a result burn errors are more likely, once the firmware has been upgraded to "handle" newer media the drive's burn success usually drastically improves. If this is the case, upgrading the firmware is often by far the easiest option as any replacement from the dealer will likely have the same firmware version and the same problems. If there is a some other problem with the drive, however, your advice if of course sound :-)

Hi,I agree, that your issue might be solved with a newer firmware. The problem with these notebook drives is, that they are special versions for the notebook manufacturers, and these have to care about providing newer firmwares. Most don't. And if there were - for example - a firmware provided by Dell or Toshiba, you wouldn't be able to apply that on your Acer.
Due to this lack of more recent firmware, I consider the notebook as "defective" and worth complaining.

Michael

mciahel - yes, i see your point, notebook manf's are very bad at providing firmware updates. Damned customer service these days is extremely bad.

P.S. totally agree with the optorite entry in your sig, I too have fallen foul of these drives :-)

I just picked up a Compaq notebook with the sdvd8821h in it also. I took a look around and can't find anything.

Are there any tweaking tools that work on the drive? If anybody finds anything post it here, I'll do the same.

First notebook for me with a dvdburner, all desktop PC based Liteon burners for me so far and C0deking and everybody else has me spoiled with the tools out there.

My wife's new laptop has a Philips 8820 and if anyone finds a site that has firmware for Philips drives, I'd love to know about it. It appears this drive incorporates 'riplock' type technology. I ripped a DVD and it went at either 2.x or 4.x speed, nowhere near the rated speed (realizing rated speed may be higher than seen in reality).

EX31 firmware updater for PHILIPS DVD-RAM SDVD8821 slim type burner.

I updated mine from EX04, no problems so far. Beware - use it on your own risk only, think twice!

ENJOY

@pimposh, any release notes for it and if I may ask where did you find it? Thanks

No, there are none.
It's came with Vista Business upgrade-CD for my notebook... Also for some others PHILIPS slim type burner.

@pimposh, why don't you upload them all? Maybe make a simple page for them. They are impossible to find on the internet and some people would really thank you.

I also have a free Vista Basic upgrade coming, mine is for a Compaq notebook I bought in December. My Philips SDVD8821H FW right now is at EH50. Is your Philips also a SDVD8821H, I just wanna make sure, EX31 seems like a heck of a jump. Thanks Again!

Yes, my Philips is SDVD8821H.
I think that last E[a-z]NN could depend on hardware reseller in this case, or maybe your version is just newer. I do not know naming schemes for plain QSI drives.

You mentioned Vista upgrade-CD - seems you misunderstood me. I found this firmware not on MS CD, but on vendor-specific CD which contained drivers, etc.

I don't know much about these drives either Thanks again for the info !!

Can't get into Pimposh website! Are the firmware updates available anywhere else?

My site is down right now due to maintenance puproses. Contact me via PM and i will send you firmware via email.

Hi there !

Can you send me the driver for SDVD8821H ?
I appreciate it! Thanks!

gtrz.

Alex

i found it, it's from msi s420 --> ftp://msicomputer.org/PHILIPS_DVD-RAM_SDVD8821_EX31.zip

but i dont know if it is for 8821H

hello!! i thought i was alone in this world

i have a laptop acer 5602. i bought it last year in japan and i had this problem too. because i cant read japanese, i formated the OS and installed an spanish windows XP Professional. and downloaded the drivers and applications from the website of acer.

i was about to change my unit, when i decided to return to the original OS in japanese, installed everything as new because i've always had problems with hangs in windows and bluescreen errors and i knew theres was something missing in there. maybe drivers, maybe something else.

my surprise came when i tested mi dvdunit. now i can red dvds, cds..and burn them perfectly. iam really sure whats going on here... but, the firmware hasnt been changed and theres nothing else i can think about.

do you recommend me to update the firmware? i need to go back to the spanish version.

I have a problem with my Philips DVDRAM SDVD8821H.........

It worked just fine up until a day ago..... All of a sudden it stoped burning DVD-R discs but it will still burn DVD-RW without any errors.....

When I try to burn DVD-R discs it keeps saying that it had an error and stops the burn.....

PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!

I can't Download Please you Upload again Thank you

This problem is very annoying, none of them sites are working above.

I've never been able to burn DVD's, i too have Compaq c300 notebook.

Anybody in the world that knows what to do?