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studio 1535 - dvd drive eject and other problems
My new 1535 is having dvd drive problems. Slot style drive. What happens--with a variety of media--is that the eject button doesn't eject and eventually the system seems to no longer "see" the drive. Doesn't show in My Computer.
Running Vista home premium x64.
Other irratic behaviors: after this disappearing drive thing happens, the pc will often lock up (windows explorer locks up) and I have power it off eventually because it won't shut down either.
Also, sometimes when it does successfully eject, the drive doesn't seem to "know" it has ejected and keeps trying... can hear the motor going over and over. And you can't put another disk in w/o rebooting.
Needless to say, annoying.
Otherwise love this unit though.
aharown
15 Posts
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August 16th, 2008 01:00
Fix for this is now avail. as bios update here http://support.us.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R194079&formatcnt=1&libid=0&fileid=268131
igobytom2
21 Posts
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August 27th, 2008 02:00
And the BIOS upgrade recommended worked?
I did the upgrade and the problem still exists.
aharown
15 Posts
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August 27th, 2008 03:00
Yeah, pretty much. Oddly, at first the problem recurred a couple of times. But I haven't seen it in more than a week now. Once in a while the eject button is non responsive, but it doesn't go bannanas on wake up or boot like it did.
I suspect another BIOS fix is needed yet though to get it consistently ejecting when it should.
I keep a shortcut to my DVD drive in my quickstart bar anyway (have for years) so I usually just right click that and eject. That always works now. Didn't before the BIOS update.
Don't know what else to suggest. Good luck.
Oh, the guys at Geek Squad just said "Don't use sleep. Sleep is problematic." Well, for several days I didn't, but I had the same problems booting up from cold. So went back to using sleep. I don't see any more diff. w/that than w/cold starting.
aharown
15 Posts
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September 13th, 2008 17:00
I think I have a fix now.
See this thread...
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=insp_general&message.id=288532&query.id=283826#M288532
In short, I have installed the A05 bios and also disabled FlashCache in the F2 settings.
Noticed an immediate difference: eject light does not linger "on" at all so far after several reboots. And the drive itself does not repeatedly act like it is/wants to eject something.
aharown
15 Posts
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September 13th, 2008 17:00
I've unmarked this as solved because I still have some abnormal eject problems. Fewer than before, but still happens.
yesterday, woke the unit from sleep & the panel eject button lit up and stayed lit up for quite a while (that particular behavior is quite common) then spontaneously ejected the disk in the drive for no apparent reason.
Also, when the panel eject light is stuck like that, the other buttons don't respond at all.
This may be the same problem as another issue I've posted in which the volume buttons in the panel (the flat electrostatic "buttons") misbehave: usually the vol. up enabling itself and turning the vol. up all the way... and often rendering the other buttons temporarily unresponsive.
So, in short, the electrostatic panel has issues!
igobytom2
21 Posts
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September 13th, 2008 22:00
I'll have to try the suggestion for disabling flashcache.
igobytom2
21 Posts
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September 16th, 2008 00:00
Well I tried disabling the flash cache setting. That didn't really seem to make much of a difference.
In fact now its pretty random.
Last night while I was working, the eject button just lit up and started trying to eject a non-existant cd...kinda like the dry heaves...and I wasn't even working on my resume!
The laptop still wants to eject a disk when I restart the PC or power up the PC from a full power off.
I'm pretty done with this laptop...And Dell is no help.
I had called Dell to ask about getting a downgrade to XP. They said since I got the Laptop at BestBuy Dell wouldn't support me and I would have to call Geek Squad!
Note to everyone: Buy direct from Dell!
Geek Squad was very evasive, what I think I got was they will load XP Pro if I bought a license; I figured dell would have had a downgrade plan. The downgrade doesn't change the diag partition.
The whole Best Buy/Dell relationship is pretty sad. I wrote a comment do Dell Support and got an automated response back to call thier support number...as if!
Maybe I can load Linux on this...
May as well learn something.
aharown
15 Posts
0
September 16th, 2008 00:00
My unit just did it again, too... on a cold restart after being off a few hours. Light came on and stayed on then just sat there for a long time after Vista & all the apps loaded. Then the drive mechanism did it's eject "dry heave" once and the button cleared. So, it was a pretty minor one this time.
I still think this is a BIOS problem because when I make changes in the BIOS, the media panel behavior seems to improve.
I'm still only seeing the problem about once every half dozen boots.
Anonymous
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274.2K Posts
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May 21st, 2009 00:00
Same here
And it is not Vista problem.
I have also UBUNTU and problem is the same.
I think that DELL gave up on this.