Question about CD burn speeds

Now that I'm thinking about it, this is probably more of a hardware question, but I'm already here. If a mod/admin feels it should be moved, it's OK with me

Anyway- is it possible for different brands of blank CDs to 'lock out' the lower burn speeds? A friend gave me his CDRW/DVDROM combo because mine went out, and he had an extra that was just laying around at his place. We hooked it up to his PC to make sure it worked and to see if it had 4x as a burn speed in Nero 6. It burned great at 4x and big smiles appeared all around. The main reason I need this 2nd drive in my PC is for the 4x burn capability (I occasionally burn .cue/.bin files that come out MUCH better when burned at 4x; the results at 8x are acceptable, but nowhere near as good as 4x). So we disconnected it from his PC, I took it home, hooked it up, but in Nero 6 on my PC it won't go below 12x. However, we used Maxell CD-Rs at his house, and I have Verbatim blanks at home. I know that my install of Nero 6 burns at 4x because I used it a lot with my now dead CDRW/DVDROM, and at that time I wasn't using the Verbatims, I had TDKs. Could this burn speed fiasco be because of the blanks?

Thanks for any help, ideas, and input.

[dlb]

 

OK- I tried some other brands of blank CDs, it will not burn below 12x in Nero6 on my PC. On my friends PC, it went down to 4x. In ImgBurn, it goes from 1x all the way up to 56x which doesn't seem real accurate. I've checked some other burning apps, and they all say 12x is slowest, and 40x is the fastest (except ImgBurn as mentioned earlier). So, what's up? Why did it show 4x on one PC, and 12x on my PC? The only reason I installed it was for the 4x burn speed.... If I go into the Windows burn speed settings, I can down to 1x. Why won't these other apps go below 12x????
:banghead

 

I figured I should provide some technical info...
The drive is a CDRW/DVD Combo - Sony CRX320EE (which is actually a rebranded LiteON if I'm not mistaken) Firmware release RYK4. According to the Sony web site, it's burn specs are 52x32x52x. But every burning app I've thrown at it (except ImgBurn; see above post) says 40x max and 12x min... I'm going to pull it out of my PC tomorrow or the next day and try it in a different PC and see what the deal is. If it shows 4x on a different PC, and 12x on mine, I'm going to completely lose it :foolish :tas

 

easier still get a disk from your friend and put it in the drive in your pc and see if 4x option opens up.