Hi guys (and gals)!

A friend of mine gave me this non-working DVD+RW writer; although the
drive was still under warranty, it was easier for him to just buy a new
one rather than pay shipping both ways and wait 6-8 weeks for the unit
to come back from Taiwan. (Cheap 4x drives can be had for nothing
nowadays.)

Armed with the very thorough repair guide on repairfaq.org, I found that
this drive's problem is that the pickup doesn't move to the center of
the disc at power-up or when closing the tray. Testing with a VOM
indicates that no power is being applied to the motor.

Now for the weird part: if I unplug this drive for a long enough period
of time, the drive will work again when plugged back in! Unfortunately,
this doesn't last; unplugging for 30min seems to be enough for the
spindle to move once at power-up, while unplugging for 3-4 hours will
allow the spindle to move only for a little while. (I haven't played
enough with it to determine whether it's a function of time or of how
many times the spindle will move.)

After that, the drive reverts to its vegetative state, with no power
being applied to the pickup motor.

I thought it might be caused by some component overheating, but nothing
in there feels too hot to the touch. On a kick, I stuck the drive in a
freezer for 15 minutes (yeah, you may laugh) which had no apparent
effect.

There doesn't appear to be anything wrong visually -- nothing looks out
of place, the connectors are solidly fastened, every mobile part is
moving freely, etc.

Any of you have any idea what might be causing this time-delayed
behavior? Faulty capacitor, maybe?


--
Frederic Briere *

= IS NO MO http://www.abacomsucks.com =

"Frederic Briere" wrote in message
...
Hi guys (and gals)!

A friend of mine gave me this non-working DVD+RW writer; although the
drive was still under warranty, it was easier for him to just buy a new
one rather than pay shipping both ways and wait 6-8 weeks for the unit
to come back from Taiwan. (Cheap 4x drives can be had for nothing
nowadays.)

Armed with the very thorough repair guide on repairfaq.org, I found that
this drive's problem is that the pickup doesn't move to the center of
the disc at power-up or when closing the tray. Testing with a VOM
indicates that no power is being applied to the motor.

Now for the weird part: if I unplug this drive for a long enough period
of time, the drive will work again when plugged back in! Unfortunately,
this doesn't last; unplugging for 30min seems to be enough for the
spindle to move once at power-up, while unplugging for 3-4 hours will
allow the spindle to move only for a little while. (I haven't played
enough with it to determine whether it's a function of time or of how
many times the spindle will move.)

After that, the drive reverts to its vegetative state, with no power
being applied to the pickup motor.

I thought it might be caused by some component overheating, but nothing
in there feels too hot to the touch. On a kick, I stuck the drive in a
freezer for 15 minutes (yeah, you may laugh) which had no apparent
effect.

There doesn't appear to be anything wrong visually -- nothing looks out
of place, the connectors are solidly fastened, every mobile part is
moving freely, etc.

Any of you have any idea what might be causing this time-delayed
behavior? Faulty capacitor, maybe?



Usually bad capacitors get better as they warm up, this sounds more like a
semiconductor or solder joint. I would try some freeze spray and cool one
small section of the board at a time to see if that helps. You could also
try a firmware update.