My new laptop has been great for the past seven months or so. Ubuntu is speedy and reliable, and by buying a random Asus laptop (X83VM-X1) I'm free of the upgrade cycle. No need to lust over the latest computer when I don't even know how mine fits into their product lineup. The only problem is that I bought a random laptop from Asus. My DVD drive has been quirky to say the least and has been mostly unusable. I was unlucky enough to get a drive with an older firmware (SR04) than the one provided on newer machines (SR07). I tried contacting Asus but they refused to send me the new firmware. I had given up on using the drive, not that it was a big problem. That is, until I came across comment #26 on this Launchpad thread. This lead me to the guy's blog, where he linked to a copy of the firmware that I needed. Just in case it decides to go down, here's another copy of the firmware. You can apply the patch in Windows to a GSA-T50L disc drive with SR04 on it, and I can confirm that it won't make your computer explode or anything.