freezes when i put a cd in

Livzz

Livzz

New Member
I tried to get some help on this before, but i didn't get much out of it so i'm trying again...
when i put a cd in, the computer freezes. its happening almost all of the time.
both my asus E616 dvd-rom and sony DRU710a do it... they are on the same ide, with asus as master and sony as slave.
after it freezes, i press the reset button and when it restarts, i get all weird and wonderful colours on the screen... so i have to turn it off, wait a minute and turn it back on again. to me, having to wait a bit before turning it back on again means that its overheating - but it can run some big games no worries so it cant be overheating...
I hear that using cable select instead of forcing master/slave might help...
any suggestions?

cheers,
Paul
 
If you are running strictly dvd drives with no cd rom or cd writer often a standard cd or cd-r/rw will not be read by some dvd roms or writers. With a Sony DRU530A the same thing happens where a cd will hang. Yet it will either play a dvd movie or write a data dvd with no issues. The second drive seen as the E drive is obviously a Sony CRX225 cd-r/rw writer that readily reads all cds software, data, or even to burn vcds. The DRU530A is master while the CRX225 is set as slave on the secondary cable. The wonderous colors seen may be the result of the video card not optical drives there.
 
hhmm... well it happens with both cds (music, games etc), and dvds (movies and FarCry game)...
both drives are dvd-roms - the asus drive is a 16x reader, and the sony drive is a dvd-burner.
i only get the weird colours after it locks up - which only happens when i put a disc in. so i dont think the video card is at fault here.
 
The wonderful colours i can probably sort out now. Press the options button on your monitor (or whatever you have) and look for a feature called degaussing. On my monitor its under the special menu. If i have lost you here say so and i will try to explain a little better. :)
 
Remember the color issue comes about after a lockup from what you have mentioned. It doesn't necessarily mean a defective card but the sudden lack of drivers being active. The cpu is then looking for something to process with the hardwares/drivers being locked. The real problem however is that both of the drives are dvd types without a cd rom or cd writer onboard to run cds while dvd movies shouldn't present a problem.

You could try cable select on each drive while planning on installing a cd rom or cd writer for audio as well as software cds where you know that they will be read normally. Generally a case always has a cd drive of some type for installing the OS as well as other softwares. If you still want to keep both dvd drives in the case the addon of a cd drive slaved to the hard drive would provide cd access. But try a change to CS to see if dvds run normal.
 
PC eye said:
Remember the color issue comes about after a lockup from what you have mentioned.
Click to expand...

Doesnt matter it could still just need degaussing. In college alot of the machines in the lab would go all funky colours when you booted them up or rebooted then would go ok, usually a degause sorted them for a few months. :)
 
It never hurts to look at the settings there if the monitor was out of sync. But that would be seen with or without dvd drive locks in many cases. The real problem however is the drives not reading the media inserted whether cd or dvd and still seeing hangups. I run a Sony dvd burner that refuses cds. But to see both drives refuse to read dvds as well as cds points at a possible error in Windows if not a jumper setting or even ide controller issue if not a bad cable being used
 
PC eye said:
But to see both drives refuse to read dvds as well as cds points at a possible error in Windows if not a jumper setting or even ide controller issue if not a bad cable being used
Click to expand...

the cables were new with the motherboard, which i'm assuming has a good controller on it...

atomic said:
The wonderful colours i can probably sort out now. Press the options button on your monitor (or whatever you have) and look for a feature called degaussing. On my monitor its under the special menu. If i have lost you here say so and i will try to explain a little better.
Click to expand...

its a samsung Syncmaster 710v - LCD...



this has got me stumped, and its extremely annoying. when i want to put a disc in, i end up having to restart and put it in before it boots so i can run it from 'my computer'
 
Have you tried the cable select jumper setting yet on either drive? You may have to check your bios settings as well. At least one of those drives should have no problem running a dvd in it. Another thought was to each drive separately with the other unplugged to see if one of them is the problem.
 
i haven't opened the box to change/test anything yet, but if it helps when i hold shift to disable autoplay then theres no problem... i just have to open the autorun exe from 'my computer'.
 
I've run into individual disks like that at times where there was no fault found with one drive or another since I had a cd rom , cd and dvd burners in all at once. The cd rom was there for games that ran with the disk in a drive. Gee I haven't ran any of those lately.
 
but it happens with any disc! in both the asus dvd-rom and sony dvd-rw!!! it will freeze when it trys to autoplay any disc... the only time it doesn't freeze is for the odd time when i'm lucky, or when i hold shift to temporarily disable autoplay
 
Again you could unplug one drive, try each on both master and cable select at the end of the cable, and also look at a possible Windows glitch. Also take a peek at the bios settings. There's another thought along with swapping the cable out for a quick substitute. But having no standard cd drive or cd writer and running two dvd drives doesn't help either with some dvd drives seemingly not able to read off cds at all. By unplugging one drive and moving jumper settings around Windows may start detecting the remaining one properly where disks will be read. Try a few things like that to see.
 
Try this link out it could help you sort the autorun problem that you are having.

http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/xp-autorun.html

and/or try the following:

Open Windows Explorer

Right-click the desired CD-ROM and select Properties from the menu.

Select the AutoPlay tab.

In the box underneath where it says "Select a content type....."
Select each item from the pulldown list and for the Action to perform,

Check the "Select an action to perform" or you could opt for "Prompt"

Pick the apporpriate action to take.

Select OK.

If this fails

Check the "Select an action to perform" and click on Restore Defaults.


Cheers
 
Last edited:
i tried that autorun program - which as part of its testing asked me to insert a cd so it could analyse the auto run procedure. but the computer still locked up when it usually does, whlie the tester was halfway through doing its thing.

Open Windows Explorer
Right-click the desired CD-ROM and select Properties from the menu.
Select the AutoPlay tab.
In the box underneath where it says "Select a content type....."
Select each item from the pulldown list and for the Action to perform,
Check the "Select an action to perform" or you could opt for "Prompt"
Pick the apporpriate action to take.
Select OK.
Click to expand...
i tried this too, but still no luck. looks like i'm gonna have to open the box and test each drive individually...

or what if i uninstalled them both from device manager, and re-installed them?

I reckon it is a windows thing, because these drives worked fine before i installed this copy of windows... and they both had no problems (and still dont) reading either cds, cd-roms, dvds, or dvd-roms, its just when they try to autoplay...
 
Damn, i was sure that software would have fixed it. Its always succeded before.

My only other suggestions are:

Try it in safe mode and see if the same problem occurs, this will help determine if its a software or setup problem.

Do you have burning or packetwriting software, this has been known to cause lock ups, such as those that you are experiencing. For example Roxio loads direct cd which may cause lockups. Especialy if there is conflicts with Nero. Maybe try removing one of these if you have multiple burning or packetwriting software.

You could try and update the drivers, bios and software from the manufacturer instead of re-installing the current ones you have. This may prove to be the most effective.

If these dont help im not really sure what you could do. You may have to open the case and check things out.
 
It has to be something like a hardware misconfiguration or a glitch in the hardware detection by Windows. Just how many writing and player softwares did you put on after this install of Windows? You may have had cross links either between drivers or even system files. The first thing to look over is the hardware as far as trying one drive at a time along with jumper settings. If that sees no results Windows and softwares is then the focus.
 
still locks up in safe mode... but could it be a bug in the windows drivers that are still loaded in safe mode?

I've just updated the firmware for the sony drive, but haven't tried it yet -
and for some reason the asus firmware updater doesn't detect my drive or the internet... So either the Asus drive is faulty (but then why did it lock up when using the sony drive?) or the asus software just doesn't work...

the software i have that might be related:
XP Pro version 2002 SP2
Nero:
-InCD EasyWrite Reader
-Nero 6
-NeroVision Express 2
Creative Entertainement Centre
Windows Media Player 10

theres no other burning software that i know of.
 
But you still haven't been inside to try the ideas of jumper setting changes or unplugging one or the other drive yet. If you mastered and slaved correctly the reversal on the cable itself might help. But if you have another cable lying around that is known to be good you could try a swap there to see if that worked along trying the other combinations.
 
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