Lite-On COMBO drive errors.

[w33tq]

I just tried burning a coupld of cds. I was able to eventually burn them, but the first tries were unsucessful. Both cds i had ripped to my computer and then burned them to back them up. However, Nero gave me a "failed to burn at 32x". My drive supposedly supports burning up to 52x, but i've tried that long before and it hasn't created a good copy of anything so far. 32x seemed fine for a while, but it still screws up once in a while.
Lite-on is supposed to be a great brand for the money, which is why i bought it... But i'm very unpleased with the results so far. Perhaps it's the version of Nero i'm using. I am using the OEM version 6 that came with the OEM drive (from newegg). I've looked for driver/firmware updates for the drive, but couldn't find anything.
As well, i'm using 700 (80 min) memorex discs that are compatible to burn at 52x. Perhaps my CD-burner doesn't like memorex? If not, then what brand should i look to buy next time?
Perhaps someone could help me fix my problems? Thanks