Under-Achieving laptop DVD Writer Needs Psychoanalysis

I installed an NEC 6500A DVD writer in our 2 year old laptop about 6 months
ago. It is rated by NEC to write at 8X speed. It has worked fine in the time
it's been there, reading and writing with one exception. It will not burn
faster than 4X speed although I use 8x media for DVD burning. Additionally
when checking its burning speed capacity using Nero Burning Rom software
(latest version) Nero Info tool rates it at 4X for burning speed. Does
anyone have any idea how to get this burner to burn at the 8X speed it's
rated? Further, I updated the NEC's firmware to the latest available but
there is no change.
Additionally, the laptop is a Sager notebook with a 2.4 ghz P4 and 1 gig of
RAM running Win XP Pro.
I've even spoken to it nicely, but it just goes along burning at the 4X
speed.

Thanks,

--
Jan Alter
bearpuf@verizon.net
or
jalter@phila.k12.pa.us