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Well, folks, it never seems to amaze me how many DVD-ROM drives seem to have their quirks.
On my audio test system (Slot A Athlon 600) I've been using a Sony 16X drive for almost two years without problems- I recently installed the Cineplayer 4.0 from Ravisent on this system, and at that point, this system moved to the head of the pack (my PC's) as far as DVD playback quality goes.
It stayed at that point for about two days, until the Sony drive died. What's even odder, is that it seems to have taken out the secondary IDE port. Now, the question can be asked, did the drive kill the MOBO port, or the other way around?
I tried a couple of other drives on that connection, and though they were recognized correctly at boot up, they couldn't be used to read data. The system thought it was looking at a music CD. I tried another new 16X Sony drive in this test. Strangely, another friend putting together a new desktop based on my current desktop design (KT266A MSI Mobo) experienced blue screen of death problems with his new Sony drive, too.
Cure? For this older system, without any RAID or ATA controllers built in, a short trip to my local Compu USA, and picked up an ATA100 board. I also swung by my Central Computer, and scarfed up the three Pioneer 16X slot load DVDROM drives they had in stock. One went to my friend, one for my daughter's system (where the new Sony DVDROM had been destined), and one for my Athlon 600.
Within minutes of getting home, flawless DVD playback in progress. Now, it's true that when the 16X Pioneers spin up to full speed, they are a skosh noisy, but I found that it just idled along nicely (in my system) for reading DVD. After a brief test session watching a whole FarScape episode and Swordfish, I buttoned the box back up and considered it a problem solved.
For the record, other brands of DVDROM's I've used have been Toshiba, Creative, Hitachi, and ACER. The Toshiba's have been reliable, but prone to firmware quirks and stutters on playback. The Hitachi was the first ever DVD-ROM bought (bundled with a Chromatic Research based video/dvd card, in 98), and it still works, but doesn't seem to be compatible with XP and some of the newer CD copy protection schemes, so it's just been retired. The ACER and Creative labs have been solid performers, the ACER being a value leader before I picked up these Pioneer drives at $82 each. I *thought* Sony was fine, but two failures in a month in the small sampling I work with has spooked me a little.
Happy Holidays, folks!
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
On my audio test system (Slot A Athlon 600) I've been using a Sony 16X drive for almost two years without problems- I recently installed the Cineplayer 4.0 from Ravisent on this system, and at that point, this system moved to the head of the pack (my PC's) as far as DVD playback quality goes.
It stayed at that point for about two days, until the Sony drive died. What's even odder, is that it seems to have taken out the secondary IDE port. Now, the question can be asked, did the drive kill the MOBO port, or the other way around?
I tried a couple of other drives on that connection, and though they were recognized correctly at boot up, they couldn't be used to read data. The system thought it was looking at a music CD. I tried another new 16X Sony drive in this test. Strangely, another friend putting together a new desktop based on my current desktop design (KT266A MSI Mobo) experienced blue screen of death problems with his new Sony drive, too.
Cure? For this older system, without any RAID or ATA controllers built in, a short trip to my local Compu USA, and picked up an ATA100 board. I also swung by my Central Computer, and scarfed up the three Pioneer 16X slot load DVDROM drives they had in stock. One went to my friend, one for my daughter's system (where the new Sony DVDROM had been destined), and one for my Athlon 600.
Within minutes of getting home, flawless DVD playback in progress. Now, it's true that when the 16X Pioneers spin up to full speed, they are a skosh noisy, but I found that it just idled along nicely (in my system) for reading DVD. After a brief test session watching a whole FarScape episode and Swordfish, I buttoned the box back up and considered it a problem solved.
For the record, other brands of DVDROM's I've used have been Toshiba, Creative, Hitachi, and ACER. The Toshiba's have been reliable, but prone to firmware quirks and stutters on playback. The Hitachi was the first ever DVD-ROM bought (bundled with a Chromatic Research based video/dvd card, in 98), and it still works, but doesn't seem to be compatible with XP and some of the newer CD copy protection schemes, so it's just been retired. The ACER and Creative labs have been solid performers, the ACER being a value leader before I picked up these Pioneer drives at $82 each. I *thought* Sony was fine, but two failures in a month in the small sampling I work with has spooked me a little.
Happy Holidays, folks!
Jon
Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....
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