Crap Sony cdq80ls3's always failing at the same spot on disc?

[j yang]

Is it possible for a whole batch of cd-r's to fail at the same spot in the disc every time? I've gone through maybe 10 of the last 12 all failing on verification in Nero, at about 70% of the way thru the verification process (the verification stops, and reports that it has failed).

(I think they may actually all be failing at exactly the same physical spot on the disc, but I can't pin down a precise % number because some of the burns have more data on them, and the % number is just a reflection of where it is in the burn, not on the physical disc.)

Nero reports the discs were written successfully, and only on verification do they fail, but when I try to play back the discs, they fail -- first, windows media player has a hard time accessing them at all (typically an .avi file), and then when wmp gets to, you guessed it, about 70% of the way through the .avi file, the cd drive goes haywire and drops down in speed in attempt to read and re-read the disc and stutters like crazy. The playback problem never happens to any of the discs that get burned and verified successfully.

It also happens regardless of what file I'm burning, so it's not a corrupted file problem. Also I have burn-safe technology on my burner, and besides that, it doesn't seem a problem of Nero fighting for resources b/c usually I have few or no other apps running.

The discs seem to play back alright if I lower the cd drive speed to 1x on playback, but that, to me, is a big problem and makes me think they're not very reliable and probably don't have much longevity in them, maybe the dye is spread unevenly or something.

Has this happened to anyone before, does it make any sense?

These are the Sony cdq80ls3's, with silver tops and silver dye and a yellow cakebox label, bought in a spindle of 50, rated 1x-48x, 80 minutes. They were bought in the US, and don't seem to correspond to the Sony's described on this page that are from Europe.

Thanks -- thanks very much for any help...

P4-2.4ghz, 512MB RAM, 52x (?) burner, burning at 24x nominal, WinXP