I have a 52X liteon burner but when I choose to write in nero or alcohol the max speed I can select is 40X. I have the latest firmware and latest version of alcohol but im not too sure about nero. Why is it doing this?

StarrMan,

lite on's use a feature called smartburn. it will only allow a burn at the speed which the media you are using is capable of effectively burning at. as a result some 40Xspeed media wont burn at more than 16X because it is such poor quality media. while good quality media will generally burn a good ways past its official rated speed.

im using grade A 48X media though, if I look at the performance graph after writing you can see that it reaches 40X then stays at it for the rest of the burn. Will I have to turn smartburn off, if so how?

To turn off smart burn, check each software for settings. You might also want to try updating the firmware to "match more media". Also try the Lite-On smart burn util to see what the drive rates any given media at. Because like iss said, just because someone printed grade A 48X on the media, doesn't mean too much.