£90 for a DVD drive

The DVD drive in my Acer Aspire 3680 fails to read all DVD's and only intermittently reads CD's. It must be a problem with the drive as I can't even get it to read anything when booting, such as when putting in an installation CD/DVD.

The only place I've found that sells DVD drive replacements sells them at £90 (~$180). That seems quite expensive to me, or is that a reasonable price for a laptop DVD drive?

 

Try cleaning the lens.
You can buy cheap ODDs from ebay such as the NEC ND-6650A....(I am using it in my 3680)

 

The model you found must speak

Too expensive. I sold couple of them in july for about £30 each. I still have one. I could sell it to you. It's a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-K1RS. If interested just PM me.

 

I've tried cleaning it with just a glasses cleaning cloth, is there any more thorough way of cleaning it?

Thanks for the offer, I can't get my current one to work any better I'll PM you.

Also, how specific are the parts? Does each part have to be made specifically for the laptop model, or do some parts fit, for example, not just my Acer 3680 but also other Acer models?

 

Checkout this post.

Your notebook can use any Slim-Line IDE Drive, tray-loading or slot-loading.

I have an Acer Aspire 3680 too, and I am happy with my NEC ND-6650A, because it is fast, and firmware/bootcode issues are not a problem.

 

See this thread and the links therein for guidance on swapping notebook optical drives.

Here are some (most probably) suitable optical drives. You can get three for your £90.

John

 

The only thing that you may have to change is the bezel (the plastic in the front of drive). Easy to do. If the new drie doesn't fit just remove the one from the old one and place it in the front of the new one.

 

Thanks very much for the cleaning advice, but unfortunately it still doesn't work, and as MicroDirect is a company I've used before and I'm pleased with I'm going to buy a new drive from them. I think I'm going to go with this one http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(32257)Liteon-DVD-DS8A1P021C-slim---DL-DVD-RW-Black-oem.aspx

However it says OEM on it, I know you should stay away from OEM versions of Windows, does it mean the same thing here?

Thanks for all your help.

 

No, don't worry about OEM, but does it come with a warranty ?

Also, does your notebook have an IDE or SATA HDD ?

 

It's an IDE hard drive. Previous products I've bought from MicroDirect have had warranties, but I can't be certain if this one has, I can't find anywhere which says so for this particular item.

 

If that item does not have a warranty, then you'll be better off buying from ebay. You can find drivers in the range of £10-20.
And make sure, that the drive you buy is a Slave.

 

you can try this one for a max price of £17.50
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DVDRW-drive-from-packard-bell-easynote-r1004_W0QQitemZ170261117763QQihZ007QQcategoryZ131543QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

I bought one of the recommended drives from MicroDirect.co.uk and received it today. I Installed it and it all works perfectly, so I'd like to say thank you very much to everyone that helped, and I can finally watch DVD movies again!

 

Thanks for the update.

It's always good to know what happens, whether successful or not.

John

 

yes that's true