CD-ROM Troubles

[Rick Bull]

I have a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo and a CD-ROM both going into the secondary IDE port on my motherboard, and both drives give me trouble. The DVD sometimes scratches my disks or doesn't recognise them and I have to eject and reinsert them. And the CD-ROM keeps spinning down after about 3 seconds. I've tried unplugging one and it makes no difference. Also I had this trouble before and got a replacment for the DVD but it started doing the same thing. Anyway anyone got any ideas what it might be, I was thinking maybe it had some relation to the motherboard.

[JungleMan]

Perhaps the cable is bad?

[Rick Bull]

Nah I don't think so as the PC is pretty new, and I did check for loose connections and didn't see any breaks or anything. Thanks anyway.

[JungleMan]

Ah, well that might even assure it more cables can be bad from the day you get them, and sometimes you can't even tell.

I had a cable once with no physical sign of damage--worked with a master, but once you put a slave on it, nothing worked..

I'd either try the drive in another machine or try a new cable. Or maybe the board header is bad?

[Rick Bull]

Alright I'll check when I turn the PC off later and tell you how it is. I think maybe there is a fault on the motherboard because I also get this weird problem when I start up, usually after I use a cd-drive - take a look at http://www.rickbull.co.uk/junk/monitor.jpg I have to stop windows from loading and restart to get rid of that otherwise it gives me some driver error.

You think I need a new PC?

[JungleMan]

Maybe a new motherboard or video card perhaps. This + CDROM problems = maybe your motherboard is dying.

What make/model is it, how old is it..?

[Rick Bull]

It's an ASUS CUSL2-C, and it's probably a couple of years old now, but I've had these trouble from the start.

[JungleMan]

I'd try the cable first; if not that, I'd just replace the whole board. S370 boards aren't incredibly expensive these days...

Does that board have onboard video? If so, are you using it? That screen corruption definitely looks like video or board to me, and if it's onboard vid, it's gotta be a faulty board...

[Rick Bull]

Nope it's an nVidia GeForce2 MX. I'll try your sugesstions and thanks for all the help.