CD-RW Drive Problems / New PC...

Hi guys,

I decided to upgrade my old system (900 MHz Athlon) to an Athlon 1800 XP. I only purchased the new parts I would need for the upgrade. I purchased the following: CPU AMD|1800+/266 ATHLON 1.53G XP, Motherboard, ABIT NV7-133R, and DDRAM 512MB PC-2100 CORSAIR.

After installing everything including my four hard drives, Sony 16 CDRW and my DVD drive things seemed fine; however, every ten minutes my Sony CD-RW drive flashes and seems to spin (with no CD) for about a minute or two. After leaving my PC on over night, I woke up to have the PC locked up and the drive spinning constantly. This also happened when I reset it and came home from work. What could cause this drive to spin so frequently? In addition, when I open the drive it waits about two seconds and immediately closes the drive tray. This never did this on my old configuration.

I have the drive connected to a channel as a master on the motherboard. Does anyone have any suggestions as to resolve this issue? Could there be a jumper setting incorrect on the motherboard, or is there a setting in BIOS I missed? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

does sound very odd...here is a Sony Diagnostic Tool:
<a href="http://sony.storagesupport.com/cdrw/diagnostics.htm" target="_blank">CD-RW Diag</a>

also...scan for a virus(hey, it can't hurt!)

if running the diag shows nothing, try removing the sony from the equation and see how it runs,

Hello again,

After a full virus scan I found no viruses present.

I received the following error message after running the Sony Diagnostic program:

This verison currently only supports CD-RW drives. There will be tests implemented for other drives at a later date. No testing will be performed. My drive is listed as follows:

J:\ CD-ROM Sony CD-RW CRX168B (1.0a)

After checking their website I found that DriveCheck was only compatible with certain CD-RW drives and mine was not one of them.

Currently, I have the drive unplugged and the system seems to be working. If anyone has any other suggestions, shoot them my way :)

Thanks!

could possibly be a faulty connection, if u have a spare ide lead you could test it with?

G.

Hmm spare IDE lead, what do you mean another IDE cable? I am going to try the drives in the other channel tomorrow.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by psuwtb:
<strong>Hmm spare IDE lead, what do you mean another IDE cable? I am going to try the drives in the other channel tomorrow.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">yep. sorrry. i meant cable, getting used to my own words again :rolleyes: good thinking, btw hope it works..

Just a weird thought.....what is the power/quality of your power supply?

OK,

I used the same ide cable but switched it to the secondary channel and then went to bed. Same problem. Woke-up this morning with the CD-RW light constantly on, and the hard drive light the same way. Just before I left for work I unplugged the CD-RW drive and left the DVD attached and will let the system run all day. If it's not locked up when I get home, I am going to order one of those Verbatim drives from Staples (40x12x48) for only $50.00. I figured it's not a bad deal, and if mine is bad anyway :)

As far as the Power Supply... I have a 500 W CompUSA manufactured by PowMax. I am pretty sure that this is working fine, as it's only three weeks old. Anymore thoughts are gladly welcomed :)

Thanks!

did the sony work on the old system with no problems?

Yes,

I have had the Sony CRX168B for over a year now without any problems. Very few coasters, and probably close to 200 good discs. That's why it seems weird that the drive would be going bad...

:/

hmmm, weird aint it. might be a bad bios setting, have you checked jumper settings on the drives (ie master/slave)

Haven't checked the jumper settings, but nothing changed when I upgraded my old PC. I just swapped motherboards and plugged the cables in.

:confused:

take off the dvdrom and run it with just the writer <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> see if your system crashes then.

Ok, will try that when I get home from work...

Just a thought ... What OS are you using? And have you got that drive included in some sort of Indexing software? XP has it's own version to make searching faster - essentially when the computer is idle it updates its indexes, if it was trying to interrogate the cdrw.

In the properties for the CDRW is it classed as removeable storage? If you are using 9x/ME do you have dma mode checked?

I am using Windows XP and it's listed as a CD-RW drive, not a removable storage device. By the way after removing the CD-RW and just leaving all of my hard drives and the DVD drive in there. It seemed to work fine. I have an e-mail in to Sony, hopefully to get a replacement. Meanwhile I picked up the $50 40x drive from Staples and will try that later this evening.

Thanks for your input and suggestions guys! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />