Why do hardware manufacturer’s supply limited products

Written by: bb Published by: Nightscript Published on: 2005-04-25 15:07:51 Topic: Hardware

Search OSI about Hardware. More articles by bb.  viewed 13903 times  send this article  printer friendly

Rate this article : -012345

By chance I discovered that the DVD writer I recently bought (within my laptop) was limited in functionality by the manufacturer for no obvious reason.

I bought a Dell laptop a few months ago, and despite a few initial teething troubles (several painful items of filthy software timed to explode a few months after purchase) I've been pretty happy with my purchase. I popped into my local computer consumables shop to buy some blank DVD+R discs for my NEC ND-6100A 8X DVD+R/RW laptop DVD drive. After my usual whinge about why I had to pick from the one grotty box of DVD+R media he had on the floor, rather than the vast selection of DVD-R discs, I happened to mention to him that I am still only getting 6x speed off the discs he sells me with a shiny 8x sticker on. He quickly responded that my DVD drive needed its firmware updating, and that Dell have a pretty good website for getting such firmware updates. I trundled off back home dived straight onto the computer and popped up the dell website. After contorting myself underneath the laptop to get the service tag, I found that Dell thought I had a different DVD drive than the one I had. I put the subtle difference in numbering down to it possibly being some custom made hardware especially for Dell and thought nothing of it. I did however wonder why my laptop had been sold and shipped to me stating 8x DVD+R/RW when the firmware it had come to with was not setup to achieve such a speed. Then again, it’s not unheard of in the computing industry to sell someone something with the 'capacity' for doing something which it can't currently do! As I wasn't 100% happy about apply a firmware update to my DVD drive which had a subtly different product number than the one being reported to me from the hardware itself, I decided to have a Google about and see if I could find the exact firmware for my drive. After several ill fated attempts - I still can’t imagine why neither the DELL nor NEC websites had a clearly accessible firmware for my product - I came across the The Dangerous Brothers website which was quite a revelation. They seemed to be offering firmware updates to my DVD drive which would not only make it do write at the speed I was sold it as performing, but this firmware also made the DVD drive able to write DVD-R discs! After downloading the firmware and running the very user friendly app, I discovered I could now burn DVD-R discs in the same way as I had previously been burning DVD+R, and all nicely at the 8x promised. So whilst I am very grateful I'm still left in bewilderment just why such a limitation has been applied to my hardware by the manufacturer, and what kind of place the world would be without such people as Vlad & Igor, The Dangerous Brothers.

Did you like this article? There are hundreds more. Join OSIX Get Involved Challenge or Test your skills

Comments: Rdrunner 2005-05-24 08:47:33 Its even worse... Ages ago i had a CD-ROM burner (~2001 or so). It was a good workhorse and it almost ate anything that you tossed at him (Including SecuRom Copy protected CDs) Then there was a bios update released and suddenly i was unable to to burn SecureRom CDs anymore (No it wasnt in the Bios update notes either). I was quite pissed and tried to hunt down the old Bios of it (Took ages) The manufacturer had a well sorted site with even the old Bios on them. But after the release of the new Bios, suddenly all "working" Versions of that Bios disapeared from that site. Basically if i was using the Site of the manufacturer i would have been unable to copy the disks like i desire. I also was able to locate the "working" bios again on some 3rd Party site. The only problem is i am no longer sure what company produced the CD-RW or i would have named it here :) But it was a "Good Name" brand and not something like LG or so Nissemand 2005-05-30 16:31:40 The "The Dangerous Brothers" link doesn't work AcidIce 2005-06-01 22:40:31 probably because dell are as ever being paid to push third party interests/products. had one dell laptop, wouldn't get another one, flimsy and corners cut. ibm thinkpads/toshiba toughbooks if you're rich are nice tbh :) Anonymously add a comment: (or register here) (registration is really fast and we send you no spam) BB Code is enabled. Captcha Number: