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Both optical drives now malfunctioning...

F

fretman

Senior member
Hello,

I have 2 LG drives on my system. One is a DVD burner and the other is a DVD Rom drive. Last week, the burner stopped reading CD's but is still able to process DVD's. Today, the DVD Rom stopped recognizing my maximum speed limit of 16X. It's only recognizing a maximum speed now of 6.6X.

I checked the IDE controller for the DVD ROM and it's still recognized as UMA and not POI.

For the burner, I don't think it's an issue with the drivers because I hooked up an external drive with the same drivers and I was able to process CD's.

My system is about 5 years old and I've never cleaned the drives. I'm not sure if that could be the reason.

Would anyone here be able to shed some light on this? Any recommendations or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
 
fretman said:
Hello,

I have 2 LG drives on my system. One is a DVD burner and the other is a DVD Rom drive. Last week, the burner stopped reading CD's but is still able to process DVD's. Today, the DVD Rom stopped recognizing my maximum speed limit of 16X. It's only recognizing a maximum speed now of 6.6X.
Click to expand...
That actually sounds normal. Most discs won't read much faster than 6-8X, even though they claim to be a 16X reader.
 
VirtualLarry said:
That actually sounds normal. Most discs won't read much faster than 6-8X, even though they claim to be a 16X reader.
Click to expand...

That sounds reasonable and logical at the same time.

However, the reason why I feel that this is an issue is because I copied a DVD last week and it took me a total of 18 minutes. And when I noticed yesterday that the drive capacity was only 6.6X I copied the same DVD again and this time it took me 53 minutes.

And most of that time was spent reading the disc.

One more thing to add. The CD portion of the DVD Rom drive is still reading at maximum capacity of 52X.

Thoughts VirtualLarry???
 
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Are you taking the measurements with manufactured or home-recordable media? If the latter, has the dye formula for it changed recently?

I guess that it wouldn't hurt to try cleaning the lens if you're in a dusty environment, though it's never something I've had to do here. Or readers are cheap enough ($15-$20) that you could try substituting another one.
 
My LG DVD burners max out at around 8X when reading discs, and it doesn't take more than 15 minutes to rip.

If it's taking you 53 minutes, then something is wrong, more than just the apparent max speed of the drive.
 
stahlhart said:
Are you taking the measurements with manufactured or home-recordable media? If the latter, has the dye formula for it changed recently?

I guess that it wouldn't hurt to try cleaning the lens if you're in a dusty environment, though it's never something I've had to do here. Or readers are cheap enough ($15-$20) that you could try substituting another one.
Click to expand...

I'm actually copying a movie that I transferred to a DVD. However, the duration of copying that same DVD has gone from about 15 minutes to 50 minutes. Definitely strange.

I'll get a cheap cleaning kit today and give it a try.

If nothing changes I may as well get a couple of new drives.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
VirtualLarry said:
My LG DVD burners max out at around 8X when reading discs, and it doesn't take more than 15 minutes to rip.

If it's taking you 53 minutes, then something is wrong, more than just the apparent max speed of the drive.
Click to expand...

My current DVD burner is still being recognized with a maximum read speed of 16X. However, it's the DVD ROM that's giving me the issue.

I'll give it another try today and see what the time is like.

Thanks.
 
Here's some additional information that might help someone here diagnose my problem.

I am currently running the most up to date firmware version for my DVD ROM drive.

However, when I use a program like Nero or Opti-Drive to report my Drive info I get the following.

For my DVD-Burner, it's reporting the following Read numbers:
16X 12X 10X 8X 4.8X 2.4X

For my DVD-ROM, it's reporting the following Read numbers:
6.6X 4.1X 3.1X 1.0X

So it seems that my system does not even recognize that my DVD-ROM is capable of 16X anymore.

Does this information help you out?

Thanks.
 
fretman said:
My system is about 5 years old and I've never cleaned the drives. I'm not sure if that could be the reason.
Click to expand...

Optical drives are mechanical in nature, so they will wear out just like your HDD and your fans. 5 years old? Just pony up the $20-30 and replace it.
 
fretman said:
Here's some additional information that might help someone here diagnose my problem.

I am currently running the most up to date firmware version for my DVD ROM drive.

However, when I use a program like Nero or Opti-Drive to report my Drive info I get the following.

For my DVD-Burner, it's reporting the following Read numbers:
16X 12X 10X 8X 4.8X 2.4X

For my DVD-ROM, it's reporting the following Read numbers:
6.6X 4.1X 3.1X 1.0X

So it seems that my system does not even recognize that my DVD-ROM is capable of 16X anymore.

Does this information help you out?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
That does seem wierd, but oftentimes, if it is reporting those numbers AFTER you insert a disc, then the speeds are based on what the firmware thinks the drive is capable of WITH THAT DISC. Some discs aren't as readable as others, and therefore it will ratchet down the speeds.

When you said that your drive read a disc at 16X, then 6.6X, is it the same exact disc, or a different disc?
 
it doesn't make sense for it to be a cleaning issue.
Either they physically broke (being mechanical, it happens) and both breaking within a week can happen.
Or maybe there is a software (driver?) issue, you can try reinstalling windows.

You already said you are using the same disks so its not a case of different dye.
 
fretman said:
I'm actually copying a movie that I transferred to a DVD. However, the duration of copying that same DVD has gone from about 15 minutes to 50 minutes. Definitely strange.

I'll get a cheap cleaning kit today and give it a try.

If nothing changes I may as well get a couple of new drives.

Thanks for the feedback.
Click to expand...

The problem I used to have way back when was if I ever replaced an optical drive -- to get a writer that was faster, for example, back when they were still going up in speed -- the new laser wouldn't like the dye formula on some of the discs that worked fine in the previous one.

Lately dyes seem to have stabilized and they're more consistent, but back then they were changing all the time unless you paid more for something like Mitsui green/gold or Verbatim blue.
 
i have two thoughts

yes, i agree with above- drives dont last forever. if you got 5 years out of yours, thats great but dont expect full speeds.

and yes, the dye thing was a nightmare. nowadays i never seem to have a problem burning on cheap discs and reading them right away... but if i let some cheap disk sit around for months then i try to use them, theyre corrupted. there are some brands of cheap media that seem to hold up fine though, like maxells.
 
VirtualLarry said:
That does seem wierd, but oftentimes, if it is reporting those numbers AFTER you insert a disc, then the speeds are based on what the firmware thinks the drive is capable of WITH THAT DISC. Some discs aren't as readable as others, and therefore it will ratchet down the speeds.

When you said that your drive read a disc at 16X, then 6.6X, is it the same exact disc, or a different disc?
Click to expand...

It is the same disc. But those numbers I gave you are the numbers that a program is reporting based NOT on an actual reading speed but on picking up information on the drives themselves. Similar to how programs can detect the amount of memory on a video card. I think it reads something embedded in the hardware.
 
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taltamir said:
it doesn't make sense for it to be a cleaning issue.
Either they physically broke (being mechanical, it happens) and both breaking within a week can happen.
Or maybe there is a software (driver?) issue, you can try reinstalling windows.

You already said you are using the same disks so its not a case of different dye.
Click to expand...

I won't reinstall windows cause that might cause me more grief. I think if I can't resolve this then I'll pick up some new drives.

Thanks.
 
stahlhart said:
The problem I used to have way back when was if I ever replaced an optical drive -- to get a writer that was faster, for example, back when they were still going up in speed -- the new laser wouldn't like the dye formula on some of the discs that worked fine in the previous one.

Lately dyes seem to have stabilized and they're more consistent, but back then they were changing all the time unless you paid more for something like Mitsui green/gold or Verbatim blue.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. However, I've been using the same discs for the past while and these problems only recently occurred.
 
wirednuts said:
i have two thoughts

yes, i agree with above- drives dont last forever. if you got 5 years out of yours, thats great but dont expect full speeds.

and yes, the dye thing was a nightmare. nowadays i never seem to have a problem burning on cheap discs and reading them right away... but if i let some cheap disk sit around for months then i try to use them, theyre corrupted. there are some brands of cheap media that seem to hold up fine though, like maxells.

==========================

Thanks for the feedback. My current spindle of DVD's are Sony. No issue until this past week.
Click to expand...
 
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check for firmware upgrades. the dvd burners have a cd-laser and a dvd-laser so yes i've seen the cd-laser burnout and the dvd burner function still. got an old pioneer 111D that does that.

also you need to firmware update - it recognizes more media and the burn rates can go faster if it matches the firmware code to the disc media code
 
Emulex said:
check for firmware upgrades. the dvd burners have a cd-laser and a dvd-laser so yes i've seen the cd-laser burnout and the dvd burner function still. got an old pioneer 111D that does that.

also you need to firmware update - it recognizes more media and the burn rates can go faster if it matches the firmware code to the disc media code
Click to expand...

Thanks. I did ensure that I was running the latest firmware. I'm having a funny feeling that this is hardware related.
 
taltamir said:
but are they the exact same batch. that is, if you got a new box of blanks of the same exact model they could have still changed the dye.
Click to expand...

Yes, they are the same batch from the same spindle. I was able to use about 20 of them without an issue up until a week ago. I would guess that the problem may not be with the media I'm using.

Thanks.
 
fretman said:
Yes, they are the same batch from the same spindle. I was able to use about 20 of them without an issue up until a week ago. I would guess that the problem may not be with the media I'm using.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

thanks for the clarification. then its definitely not the media.
 
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