causes for DVD/CD drives not working

[JHoxley]

hi all,

first off, why in this forum you ask? well I know the 2 drives (more in a sec) work fine - nothing wrong with the units, and I changed the mobo... so its got to be (i hope!) a motherboard issue.

Heres the run down:

1. Built a new system, new mobo (ASUS P4PE) new processor (P4-3.06ghz) and new RAM (1gb Corsair). The rest of the pieces I kept from my old system (ie, graphics, CD, DVD, HDD1, HDD2).

2. I swapped the drives exactly over - same config on my old system (master/slave relations):

Primary IDE:
- 60gb Maxtor HDD ( Master )
- 60gb Maxtor HDD ( Slave )
Secondary IDE:
- AOpen 48x CD-RW ( Master )
- Toshiba SD-M16 DVD-ROM ( Slave )

3. Set everything up, its all working fine apart from the 2 optical drives. These symptoms:

a. the appear fine, BIOS recognises them, Windows recognises them (as the correct models, with DVD/Cd-RW features accordingly).
b. they randomly disappear - windows just "loses" them. Now this only tends to happen when I start using them. In particular, when copying files or installing software. Given its a new system its most annoying not being able to install my software
c. when windows loses the drives, the drives seem to lose power as well - the open/close mechanism wont work, no lights are on. restarting is the only way to get them back-to-life again.
d. when I can get Cd's out, they're often very very very hot to touch.

-------

( d ) indicated to me that it may be overheating, so I moved the drives around, gave them better air-flow etc. no joy.


Can anyone give me any hints as to why this is happening? things to check, rules to follow?

if the setup (master, slave, same IDE channel) worked for my old system (motherboard), surely it should work with this newer/better motherboard? or is that my flaw?

any help is greatly appreciated!
kind regards,
Jack

 

[Crashman]

I had a similar experience when I overloaded a 12v branched line.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[JimmyDean]

I actually had this happen when I had a athlon 700mhz. I had a 10gb hd and a 9gb hd on the primary and a 36x cd reader on secondary IDE. What fixed it was moving 1 hd and the cd player to primary IDE, and the hd on the secondary. Try this
Primary ide:
1. maxtor 60gb
2. DVD drive
secondary ide
1. maxtor 60gb
2. cd drive

<i>Royal Fusileres, Company C</i>

 

[JHoxley]

hi,

thanks for the 2 suggestions...


1. overloading a 12v line - am i correct in thinking that you mean you plugged too many devices in to the same 4-pin plug from the PSU?
- if so, then might be the case - I run both HDD's and a FAN off the same power line.

2. regarding changing the master/slave stuff... great idea, but I dont think my IDE cables will reach the case is a nice big Antec Plusview (10 drive bays), I cant stretch a 3 way IDE cable from optical->harddrive->mobo... unless I bought some special cables that are longer?!!?


cheers,
Jack