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General discussion

DVD Plays DVDs and CD Audio fine, but not CD-ROMs

Nov 20, 2003 7:13AM PST

Just like the title says... I'm running a Dell XP Desktop with a LiteOn 16x DVD player.
I am constantly having trouble reading CDs that have data on them. CD audio and DVD's are perfectly fine.
They work every once in a while, but they take forever to read. I've tried using one of those CD Cleaner things and I've tried updating the DVD player drivers from Dell's site and still no luck.
It's really starting to get on my nerves. Has anyone else had the same problem and/or know how to fix it?

Discussion is locked

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Re:DVD Plays DVDs and CD Audio fine, but not CD-ROMs
Nov 20, 2003 7:13AM PST

PS Whatever happened to the Forum Search function?

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Yes. I swap the drive out. Most of the time.
Nov 20, 2003 7:18AM PST

There are no "drivers" in XP for this. It's "native." Sometimes you can find a newer FIRMWARE for the drive, but in the end, the drive's laser or circuits degrade and fail and you see one type of media (CDRW or DVD+R/W) start to have issues, konk out and then it gets worse.

At least the drives are cheap. With all format DVD writers on the verge of dropping below 99USD, you may want to tell Santa what you want.

Bob

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Re:Yes. I swap the drive out. Most of the time.
Nov 20, 2003 7:21AM PST

Are you serious? The entire PC's only a year old. Any idea how something like that happens? Or is it just the nature of the beast?

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How, why, why me?
Nov 20, 2003 7:35AM PST

How and why:

The endless pressure to lower costs meant reducing parts counts, shrinking heatsinks, smaller fans, no fans, less this, less of that, "will it last long enough to meet the warranty" and so on. The MTBF, POH numbers plummetted or are no longer published but you now can buy 100 drives for 20 bucks in bulk.

If you are inside the warranty, use it to get a new drive.

A key factor in the life of these devices is heat. I've seen a lot of machines with CDRW and DVD drives stacked on top of each other. You eject the media and it's hot as your pizza. Simple spacing from drive to drive does wonders as well as a little airflow. Not much is needed, but zero is bad.

Why you? Luck of the draw that yours only lasted this long. Try warranty or replace it.

Your choice on the matter, but imagine how much I grimace as I watched a person I consulted face to face on that spent 2 months with lens cleaners, firmware updates (dozens I think) and the endless search for that elusive driver that would cure the drive. Sadly, they spent most of their time trying to find a cure rather than let me test-drive a new unit to see if that was it.

Best of luck,

Bob