Thanks Osprey4, "failing" means intermittently won't read data disks (just grinds and clicks horribly when my other laptops, including one with same OS, read these without problems) and intermittently dies (stops playing, system nonresponsive) while playing a DVD movie. Against economic common-sense I resuscitated this machine from a blue screen death some time ago (brute hacking: pulled it apart, put it together and re-installed the software). I was never able to pin point what actually fell over (in spite of running diagnostics) so I'm suspicious (superstitious?) my DVD burner might be the cause. Kind regards Nate.
Ok, your strategy sounds good. I'm not sure there is a way to leave the drive in place but disconnected. Here is the service manual if you want to investigate further. However, a replacement drive is only going to be $40 or so. If the system is working otherwise, it would be worth popping a new DVD drive into it.
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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January 3rd, 2011 06:00
Hi Natefisher,
"Failing" means what? I don't encounter too many issues with hardware that is failing. Usually just dead.
NateFisher
3 Posts
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January 3rd, 2011 10:00
Thanks Osprey4, "failing" means intermittently won't read data disks (just grinds and clicks horribly when my other laptops, including one with same OS, read these without problems) and intermittently dies (stops playing, system nonresponsive) while playing a DVD movie. Against economic common-sense I resuscitated this machine from a blue screen death some time ago (brute hacking: pulled it apart, put it together and re-installed the software). I was never able to pin point what actually fell over (in spite of running diagnostics) so I'm suspicious (superstitious?) my DVD burner might be the cause. Kind regards Nate.
osprey4
4 Operator
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34.2K Posts
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January 3rd, 2011 13:00
Nate,
Ok, your strategy sounds good. I'm not sure there is a way to leave the drive in place but disconnected. Here is the service manual if you want to investigate further. However, a replacement drive is only going to be $40 or so. If the system is working otherwise, it would be worth popping a new DVD drive into it.
NateFisher
3 Posts
0
January 4th, 2011 15:00
Osprey4,
Thanks, I ran some additional diagnostics and got the following error message on the DVD:
Error code 0F00:133B
Msg: IDE device failed: No audio output.
In the read tests I also got some error messages (0F00:021B) but the device passed on retry when I changed the disk.
Is there anything for this apart from replacing the drive?
Kind regards
Nate