I recently stumbled across an older computer power supply review in the german magazine c't which left me with some questions regarding the power supply of computer re-writers (CD, DVD).

The article (unfortunately, I don't have a link) basically stated that even highly-acclaimed, branded power supplies like e.g. Enermax or Zalman will not always reliably produce direct currents that are free of surges or short voltage drops (especially when getting older and/or warm after e.g. an 8-hour-load).

My question is ... will certain "instabilities" in the power supply during a burning process affect the write quality (e.g. "confuse" the running OPC) or do the drives themselves have some kind of additional "buffer capacitance" to withstand voltage drops (filters to withstand power surges would be another though on that topic, too) ?

BTW ... my motivation regarding that thought is the lousy and varying quality of my burned DVD's, even on quality media ... so I am trying to sort out some possible problems ...