T40p, Matshita UJA745 DVD/CD-RW not working well

[synergy]

The Matshita UJA745 CD-R, DVD-ROM player on my T40p seems to work ok on the CD but not on the DVD.
I've tried both the regular DVD movies, DVD-R and DVD+R but most of them don't get to read well.

I've heard that the particular Matshita drive has high failure rate. Beside, it was hardly ever been used before other than running few OS installations.
I've noticed that there is a firmware update for it. Is this "the fix" for the drive or should I simply get a new one?
I don't believe this particular drive do DVD burning.

Your expertice is greatly appreciated.

[emeraldgirl08]

Which OS are you running this from?

If it's from W7 I noticed my DVD's have a slight hiccup- especially when there are on-screen displays generated from the hotkeys (volume, brightness, and Thinklight). I give it a couple of seconds and then the DVD plays fine.

I haven't had to do any firmware update for the optical drives since I've been using Thinkpads. Is there any other media player you could test this out with? ie. Winamp, etc.

[richk]

Sometimes, I have luck cleaning the lense with denatured alcohol or electronics cleaner, but most times, the "fix" is a new drive

[synergy]

I'm currently using the XP pro SP3.
The link is one of the proof of a known problem for the UJA745 drive.
http://juljas.net/linux/hardware/ujda745/