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Ever heard of this happening?

K

Known Unsoldier

Member
So I'm playing BFV for like an hour and a half, when I suddenly smell the faint, yet instantly recognizable scent of electrical smoke. I tear my headphones off and quit the game, panicking that my 6800 somehow managed to hit eleventy billion degrees celcius, and was in the process of melting (even though my video was fine). However, I look down and see that my DVD burner carriage was open (it did this by itself). It wouldn't close. It doesn't respond to anything. It's fried. Is there a poltergeist situation going on here, or could Dell have installed it wrong, or perhaps just a bad burner. At any rate, my burner is officially burnt, and I'm kinda scared to put another one in there. I can't wait to talk to Dell tech support!
 
First of all - and I hope you'll forgive me - LOL.
(your topic summary is classic btw)

I've never personally heard of that happening but the only things that comes to mind are [in no particular order!] (a) power supply malfunction or (b) "burner" (snicker) malfunction. While it is possible that the interror temperature got so hot that the "burner"'s (snicker) own heat was too much for it to bear, I am going to say it is also implausable as the rest of the computer would likely have suffered a similar fate.
In the former (A) scenario, it is possible for this to happen (although extremely unlikely) in a manner that would actually result in the rest of the system working OK, but I am going to shine away from this scenario. Just to be sure, I would recommend you download a program called SpeedFan (google it) and check your voltages once in a while just to be sure. Also, plug in a crummy old CD-ROM you have laying around (doesn't even have to be attached to the IDE but it might help for some reason) and make sure that that one particular line has not somehow shorted out internally and is producing a strange voltage or something.
The latter scenario (B) is what I would think to check out first. My guess is that a device such as that is probably going to be the weak link in the loop and just needs to be RMA'd. You might google it though just for kicks, but I'm sure you'll have fun with the Dell support people...

Anywho, good luck... Do let me know if you find anything interesting >=).

-Scott
 
Heh, 'tis pretty interesting.

I chatted with Dell online, and apparently what they're going to want to do is send out some technician to my house and run tests as well as replace my burner. He's supposed to call sometime this week, but I'll let you know what the verdict is once I figure this thing out.
 
It can happen, probably the PCB/chipset of the optical either overheated, or there was a small surge from the PSU (or a flaky wire on the molex leading to the drive), that killed it. Rare, but not entirely unheard of, I had that happen to a HD once, the HD controller chipset "let out the magic smoke", had a tiny crack in the top of it too.

While you were playing does this game require the disc to be in the drive? IOW, was the drive actually running at the time? If you have a high-speed drive, under continous operation for some time, they will indeed overheat and start to malfunction. I recommend using "Nero DriveSpeed" to slow down your drive if it is going to be under continous operation for some time. (Or better yet, image the contents of the CD onto a file on the HD, and use DaemonTools to mount it as a virtual-CD, and save the wear-and-tear on your opticals.)

 
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