No, you're ok there. Your system has a SATA hard drive, right, so the DVD burner will be on the primary IDE channel. Have you checked for firmware revisions?
I did as you suggested and there was no Secondary IDE Channel listed only a Primary. In order for the DVDRW drive to show up again I had to manually "scan for hardware changes." The primary IDE Channel says that it is set on Ultra DMA Mode 2. Is this problem bigger than the drive itself?
Yes, SATA HArd Drive. I updated the firmware just a short while ago and the problem still persists.
I just tried to play a DVD in the drive and the audio is skipping right away, the video freezes after 1 min, then will play again but with the audio out of sync. The process repeats at varying points, but the symptoms are always the same. I don't want to call Dell Tech Support as that is a nightmare in itself.
Called XPS Support (they actually have Americans working for them!) and a new drive will be sent out tomorrow should have it on Wednesday. If this doesn't work they want to replace the video card.
I've had this computer for 6 months (XPS Gen 3) and I've had no problems with it except for the NEC DVD RW drive that the computer came with. The main issue is that when playing DVDs it will be very choppy at times,
NEC ND-3450A HH 16XDVD-RW +/-
DELL XPS Gen 3
ATI X800 SE
80Gb Hard Drive
1gb DDR Ram
Samsung CDRW Drive
NEC DVDRW Drive
I have this same drive NEC DVD+-RW ND-3450A
and I won't go into the gory details of its misreads.
There is a Windows Based Firmware Flash Utility update for "NEC ND 3450A HH 16X DVD +/-Drive
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/type.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=DIM_PNT_P4_XPS_G3&category=32&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=8128&devlib=32
Read the installation instructions carefully.
This solved all my problems! Did you let it reboot when notified?
Did the flash upgrade finsh with no errors?
Yea Dell drives are the cheapest on the planet.
I upgraded drives on an older machine and got much better performance than the stock junk drives.
But then every Dell part is below Retail grade and specifications.
Message Edited by katwomansz on 05-25-2005 12:43 PM
osprey4
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May 23rd, 2005 23:00
No, you're ok there. Your system has a SATA hard drive, right, so the DVD burner will be on the primary IDE channel. Have you checked for firmware revisions?
ex0dus
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May 23rd, 2005 23:00
osprey4
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34.2K Posts
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May 23rd, 2005 23:00
ex0dus
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May 23rd, 2005 23:00
osprey4
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May 24th, 2005 00:00
Message Edited by osprey4 on 05-23-2005 09:01 PM
ex0dus
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May 24th, 2005 01:00
katwoman
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May 25th, 2005 02:00
I have this same drive NEC DVD+-RW ND-3450A
and I won't go into the gory details of its misreads.
There is a Windows Based Firmware Flash Utility update for "NEC ND 3450A HH 16X DVD +/-Drive
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/type.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&SystemID=DIM_PNT_P4_XPS_G3&category=32&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=8128&devlib=32
Read the installation instructions carefully.
This solved all my problems! Did you let it reboot when notified?
Did the flash upgrade finsh with no errors?
Yea Dell drives are the cheapest on the planet.
I upgraded drives on an older machine and got much better performance than the stock junk drives.
But then every Dell part is below Retail grade and specifications.
Message Edited by katwomansz on 05-25-2005 12:43 PM
osprey4
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34.2K Posts
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May 25th, 2005 21:00
Katowmansz:
Glad that worked out. Thanks for posting your experience. These posts can really be helpful to others later on.