DVD burner dead already on new 9700t...

Just out of my 21 days and the lightscribe DVD burner in my new 9700t has suddenly died... *sob* I don't want to deal with the inconvenience of sending it out at the moment, so I just bought a replacement external drive (Sony DRX840U), and deal with it if something else more pertinent to the whole notebook working goes wrong later, I guess.

I'm used to having to replace DVD burners at about every 9-12 months, since I am a heavy user, but this is ridiculous and I actually hadn't used it that much yet (burned maybe 3 discs, used about 10 for video viewing or installing programs...), not at all like my usual behavior of burning 20 CD-Rs in a row or watching anime for 6 hours straight.

 

did you check the device manager to make sure that it isn't a driver issue or something related instead of a complete hardware failure? Try contacting HP and see what they say

 

hp'll just send you a DVD drive.
You mail ur broken one back

 

what model/brand dvd drive do you have?

I use mine excessively on both burning and reading and its still working fine even lightscribe.

Today at work i ripped audio/video from about 15dvd's and burnt 3 dvd's, i do this about 2-3 times a week

 

Wow that thing went bad quick! I've burned over 200 dvd CD's (both data and Lightscribe side) without any problems. You must have the some really horrible luck if you replace your drives that often. What are you doing that makes them go out so fast? Heck I've had a DVD drive in my old desktop system for many years and never had any issues with it.

-Reby

Edited to add: You are not using the DVD drive as a cupholder are you? =)

 

Reby - LOL. It doesn't look like it would make a very stable cupholder What makes them die is that generally too much heat burns out the motor. My past drives dying have usually been a combination of time, and heavy use, I often have times where I will burn 20+ CD-R in row, for several days in row, or even 2x a day (I get a lot of requests for shows or anime from people who don't have the ability to get them themselves for various reasons, I've been doing this for many years now), and I can easily go on viewing binges where I will watch stuff from disks for the whole day, which can really build up a lot of heat. So when that happens I know it is my fault the drive has died.

Flipfire - it is the 'LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support' option for the HP 9700t


Will they really just have me take the drive out and send it in? That wouldn't be so annoying as sending the whole thing in and waiting who knows how long to get it back... I'm used to changing out the disc drives in desktops, but I've never done it for a laptop before, but I guess it should be too different?


ncstate11 - It is acting like an old drive that had burned out - it's only spinning up and burning at about 2x to 4x when I test it, and will only burn coasters. (I tested the same discs in my old computer and they are operating at the normal 48x, so it's not the discs I'm using, it's definitely the burner)

 

If your in the US, they will most likely send you a replacement drive w/ instructions to DIY. Its easy though as only 1 screw is holding the dvd drive in

 

Do you guys find the DVD to be pretty noisy as in lots of clicking, not just the normal reving, when it accesses data? Just got my 9700 and am noticing that, even though it seems to work fine.

 

I did always hear some kind of noise before the spin-up, not exactly a clicking, but a different noise, a little louder. Every drive I've ever had makes some kind of annoying noise though, I've had two extremely loud ones that sound like an airplane starting up, and one had an irritating whine. Perhaps HP has a bad batch of drives they are installing lately, or maybe it's normal for this particular drive to make that noise.

 

Don't feel too bad.

I've had my dv6500t since October. The first drive was DOA. Second drive lasted until last month. At which time they sent me a bad drive which had to be replaced immediately. So I'm on my 4th drive already.

On my dv6000t (which had a faulty motherboard and this dv6500t is the replacement for) I also had 3 drives die on me.

On my dv5030us (which also had a faulty motherboard, different issues than the dv600t.. the dv600t was the replacement for that system) I had a drive that scratched discs and couldn't burn them properly and another 3 replaced.

Of all 3 systems combined I have burned maybe 50 discs total. All 3 systems have sat on a desk, NEVER taken anywhere.

Edit: Forgot to say that, so far, the dv6500t has been performing flawlessly, other than the DVD drives dying. The other two had obvious issues out of the box. But this one has been great. Aside from the DVD drives. Once its out of warranty I'll just get myself a good Lite-On drive to stick in it or a good slot loader.