DVD Drive Freezing System

Yet another problem with the peice of crap Mat****a UJ831-D that came with my Z70VA. Just today it started to stall my system when trying to play a DVD. Havent tested it fully but it deffinatly does it when trying to skip forward through scenes and has done itwhile nero was recoding dvd's. Any idea whats causeing it? The whole computer freezes and i have to hold the power button to turn off the laptop. Any fixes/solutions possible??

 

Reinstall the hardware drivers?

That would be the first thing I'd try. Remove the drive from the device manager, reboot, and it will be detected & reinstall (otherwise, you can force detection from the device manager).

If the problem only started a short while ago, it might be related to software you installed recently. Try rolling back to a restore point previous to the time when problems started occurring.

Try doing those and return to this thread with the result.

 

LOL ) my laptop freezes everytime the drive reads a scratch

 

Well, that too... on a thread in about a W7J I think, we reached a kind of a consensus that the DVD-drive access routines in Windows are cr_p.

The computer doesn't actually freeze when errors are encountered, only the DVD reading routine. The way to deal with that is to interrupt it by hardware i.e., remove the DVD from the drive. Then the computer starts responding again

But it shouldn't freeze on reading or writing fresh DVDs, that's either software or hardware malfunctioning.

 

no the entire system does freeze. i take the dvd out of the drive and the system is still frozen. Ill try removing from device manager. The only thing ive done i think since is possible used pc booster program to optimize system settings. If i need to roll back how do i do so?? And how fardoes it roll back?

 

tried uinstalling then reinstalling. First disk worked i seeked through the entire thing. Tried a another dvd and as soon as it started to spin in the drive system froze. Removed DVD system still frozen.

 

check Windows Help for System Restore Wizard. The date should be recorded with each restore point, restore to a date prior to your starting to have problems.

I know your problem is deeper than just the DVD routine freezing, I was explaining to the other poster how he can recover from freezes on disk errors.

 

I think its strickly the DVD drive seeing as its not even sounding like it used to. The spinning routine sounds out of whack and even hums at points. I restored to an earlier point and its still doing it.

 

Another idea, try a different DVD-playing software. Does the freezing happen when you read data DVDs? If not, then it's probably related to the WinMedia player or whatever you're using. About the writing issues, I don't know... try a different DVD burning software also, before giving a verdict; are you using the Nero version that came with the computer?

A free player is VLC.

 

using the latest nero and using the asus DVD program. I just reformated and did a fresh install of windows a couple days ago. Ill do a restore even further back to rule out software.

 

About the strange sound... can be related to bad DVD. If the drive does error re-reads, it will "sound strange", or "humm".

I've had an entire batch of DVDs that I couldn't write; another that I could write, but then half of them couldn't be read.

Use DVDs from different batches: different store, different brand of DVD. Don't draw your conclusion only from two video-DVDs. They might be at fault.

 

ok restored to a point where no software related to DVD drive. And the hum happens randomly. I keep trying with different burn DVDs that play perfectly and played perfectly before the problem. Put first dvd in. Drive reads and can seek through it find. Take it out insert a different DVD computer freezes as soon as the dvd player begins spinning. Its hooped. Happens with random DVD's. Wonder if i can just send the drive to asus? Or will they need my entire system? Is also like 1 month past the 1 year point =( think they'l care??

 

If you only have a one-year warranty, they will care about that. I would be really surprised that the DVD drive is causing the whole system to freeze (truly, might be something else). I know my reaction would be to try a fresh windows install, and do all sorts of hardware tests first. If thats not really an option, I would call Asus next.

 

WTF now it just stopped freezing. Loaded 6 different DVD's with not problems and seeked the entire way through. DVD drive sounded normal again and its the same 6 DVD's ive been using randomly to test and it kept freezing on. I dunno LOL. Seriously this drive has been screwy since i bought the system.

 

If you're past warranty, it's quite likely they won't service your system for free...

Here in NL, they ask EUR 75 for shipping and handling that you pay anyway, then they examine the computer, make an estimative cost, and if you agree to it they fix the notebook. It's just like the normal pickup and return warranty - just that you pay for everything.

But, before taking radical action, do the following:

- reinstall Windows again (to eliminate software completely). Don't install any drivers, just try copying data DVDs. Then install video drivers and a DVD player, like VLC, and try playing video DVDs.

If it works, you're fine. Otherwise, next step:

- find someone with a compatible, swappable DVD drive. Try that one. If it works, you've isolated the problem. If it doesn't work, you have eliminated the DVD drive as the source of the problem. It's then most likely in some other hardware.

If it's the DVD drive, you can buy another one from ASUS, ebay, or wherever.

If it's some other hardware, you'll need to send the notebook to ASUS for repairs... or try other steps, like rewriting the BIOS, etc.

 

ok thanks for the help guys i may try the windows reinstall again on my next day off. Ill keep you updated.

 

You're welcome hope you can fix it.

 

Anyway that video card drivers could of been interfering with it? Changed the video card drivers from 6.11 catalys to 6.3 omegas and a dvd that was the most problamatic is working.

Also could undervolting the video card cause a problem? My CPU is undervolted too fro all values from 6 - 15, i now changed it to undervolted on 6X multiplier and the 15X multiplier only.

 

Well, strange and twisted are the ways of Microsoft software.

It might be the catalyst drivers, many people have been having problems with them. Although I can't see how on earth video card drivers would relate to the DVD drive. Edit: of course, if you're basing your judgement only on video DVDs -- then I can see quite clearly that the video drivers are at fault. But you should not base your judgement only on video DVDs, I said several times before you should also try copying data DVDs.

It might be the CPU undervolting, if the DVD reading routine loads the CPU (which I don't know for a fact). But if so, the system would freeze also when the CPU is loaded by other applications (like a CPU tester, SuperPI and the like).

Anyway, if you're going to test for hardware problems, always roll back to / reinstall the stock drivers for all components, no modded anything, and don't install any software for hardware management (such as undervolting etc.) other than what comes with the notebook (and not even that). Preferably, do a clean Windows recovery / reinstall and don't install anything after that, run it like that for a few days.

Otherwise, you are never really going to be able to obtain a clear outcome and say "it's hardware" or "it's software". And you're wasting your and our time.

 

And, of course, an easy step is to try doing the operations that fail under windows, under a Linux system, such as a Knoppix LiveCD. If the operations work there -- well then it's clearly software. If not, it's very likely either firmware or the hardware itself.