Slow DVD Drive

[iceblade42k]

I have a 16x speed DVD rom and its been working fine until now. Now it can only read dvd disks, and not cds. Also, it takes around 5minutes to copy 1gb onto my computer, taking up 100% of the CPU usage when doing so (I have Athlon 1800, 256mb). Anyone have any suggestions/advice on ways I can improve on this or has the laser died?

 

[Nitestick]

if something is not seriously wrong with that drive i would point the finger at dma because it should be able to copy data from dvd to hdd with almost no cpu usage. check that dma is enabled. sorry i'm too tired to find linkage for you or explain it. go to the microsoft knowledge base and search "enable dma". but i suppose the drive is most likely faulty as you've said it stopped reading cd's. try the drive in another computer if possible.

 

[RicoDirenzo]

Did you add any peripherals to your system that may have put a stress on your PSU. A Bad or fualty power supply is like Multiple Sclreosis in the human brain.....An infinite number of systoms that point to other things that may just be the PSU. I always sub out the power supply in a computer I am repairing just to make sure I'm not going to be wasting alot of time. If it is not the PSU then I doubt it is a DMA issue unless you recently changed your DMA settings for that DVDrom. If it is XP we are talking about, then you would have had to change that protocol yourself. Did you? If it is not the power supply or DMA settings....time to buy a new DVDrom.

 

[iceblade42k]

I havent fiddled around with DMA settings. However, some settings (cables) were pulled out and replugged in a while as I was considering installing another HDD(but didnt install one, so put everything back)