"Ric" wrote in message
...
Is there any way to downgrade my firmware? Is there any other explanation
as
to why it suddenly doesn't like my 40x media?

Just overwrite the current firmware with an older version.
As for the burning...i think the software examines the media it writes to,
then decides what is the best burning speed for that blank.

I also noticed that my Plextor Premium would extract audio from pressed
discs slower then i had other discs, it varied from CD to CD.

The same rule might apply to recording media.