Odd Cabling Problem with DVD-RW Drive

[GerrFel]

I have this DVD-RW Burner from Newegg in my computer. I've had it since September without any problems. But I've run into a problem. It stopped working yesterday so I've been fiddling with the cabling. It didn't appear to be getting any power. Well I figured out what is wrong.

If I plug in JUST the power cable, the drive powers up fine. If I plug in the power AND the IDE cable, the drive acts dead. What's wrong??

 

[shellshock]

well first off, I would try a differnt IDE cable and see if that helps. If not, I would try it on a differnt ide channel

 

[GerrFel]

I'll be right back...

Any more suggestions?

 

[GerrFel]

Different cable seemed to work. Thanks. Don't know what happened...

 

[billb]

Different cable seemed to work. Thanks. Don't know what happened...

They go bad. Do you have the audio connector plugged in? If so it's not required.

 

[ocminimus]

Two things..
Why is the audio connector optional?
and
Some IDE cables I've had have been picky with jumper settings (sounds crazy but I swear...)

 

[stool]

As I understand it, the audio connector bypasses the PCI bus and lets the sound(either a card or onboard) do the work. You can still get audio from a CD without the cable.
All IDE cables are not the same, as you can get cheap, non-functional ones right out of the box, and some that last for years just go bad suddenly. If your problems stem from Cable/Device positioning(ie Master/Slave/Cable select), that can often be corrected easily with a little trial and error.

 

[infinitevalence]

Did you recently buy a Sony CD and use it in that drive? If so Sony may have disabled the drive for you to prevent you from posibly breaking the law.

 

[Quick69GTO]

I'm glad you fixed the problem with a new cable but you may want to check the owners manual to see if the drive requires an 40 pin/80 conductor (hard drive) cable.
I have a Pioneer and a Benq 16X DVD burners that requires such a cable to run at full speed.
Replace the cable with an 80 conductor hard drive cable and check in the device manager to see if it jumped up to UDMA 4.
Both of my drives did.