[Markarian421]

I got my PowerMac G5 a little over a week ago, and I'm having strange problems with the DVD/CD drive. Every once in a while either when I first insert a CD or when one is already in and it wakes from sleep, the CD spins up, then there's a rattling sound and it rapidly spins down. Repeat about 4 times and then it spits the CD out. It's done this with both program and music CDs, all of which it has been perfectly happy with at other times. This happens about once a day. Anyone else see this? (I can't get the forum search to work at the moment.)

The only time I've seen something like this before was a cd drive that died about a week later. Hmmm.

[Markarian421]

Hmmm, AppleCare's response is to ask me to reinstall the operating system which makes no sense at all -- I thought I got away from that when I quit using Windows machines but I guess not. Since it's a user serviceable part, I asked if they can just send me a new drive since that seems the most obvious and likely source of the problem, but they said no. I guess I just wait and see if the drive dies completely.

[Markarian421]

Ah, I should update this -- although the AppleCare guy would not send me a replacement drive, he said I could take it to an authorized service center and have them "check it out." So I took it to the local Apple Store. The guy there looked at my description of the problem, looked at the case notes, looked confused, looked at the case notes again, and looked annoyed. "There is no magical 'checking it out,' it's clearly an optical drive problem, you need a new optical drive." Unfortunately he had none in stock, so he added to the case notes that AppleCare should send me a new one, but I still had to spend another inexplicable 40 minutes on the phone with AppleCare to get them to send me one.

[spindler]

If I was Apple, I think I would try not to send you a new drive just for a small problem like that. After all, they might make $250 per machine, and that can get eaten up pretty quickly if they repair everything and send out parts to everyone.

CD and DVD drives tend to be flaky. They won't accept some disks or they may make a lot of noise on others. They may be able to read a CD but not boot from it. If you have a problem only once a day with a DVD drive you are doing pretty well.

[Markarian421]

I guess we should be glad you are not Apple then! A small problem like the optical drive in your new computer not working? Well, yes, Apple could try to sell us all broken machines and refuse to fix them, but that doesn't do much for your bottom line long term when people never buy another machine -- if you buy something new you expect it to work. And for the guy at the Apple Store there was no question, I didn't have to ask for a new drive, I told him what it was doing and he told me I needed a new drive (and apologized for AppleCare's useless response). The guy on the phone was just a flake -- reinstall the operating system? I mean yes you could interpret that as a move on his part to try and save Apple some money by suggesting something so outrageous and pointless that it would get me to drop the whole thing and go buy a new drive out of my own pocket. But I think that's giving him too much credit. I think he just didn't have a clue and wanted to pass the problem off on someone else.

So maybe I should add I only use the machine a few hours a day, so it's really a failure every few hours, on a new machine out of the box. Also, it's not an issue with some discs, it's all as far as I can tell -- it's perfectly happy with a disk one time, then won't accept it the next. (I've had other drives that were picky about some discs/brands/etc, this is not that -- I didn't call AppleCare until I realized that was not the case.) And finally, these symptoms are not common in PM G5s in particular, in searching the web and forums I was unable to find a single additional mention of this problem in PM G5s, so it's not going to break Apple's bank to fix whatever small number are defective (and Sony should refund Apple's money for the defective ones!) and as a reward they will make even more money off me when I buy my next mac. A wider search confirms my own experience -- these symptoms are classic across all computers for a bad drive or old drive going bad (lens misaligned or getting dirty for instance) and should not occur in a brand new machine out of the box.

I got a new iBook a couple years back and one of the switches in the keyboard did not work. That time the AppleCare person didn't think twice about sending me a replacement keyboard, I was on the phone maybe 10 minutes total including hold time. Early this year the same iBook's optical drive failed (in a more spectacular way than the one on the G5, it was physically impossible to insert discs any more!) and again there was no question about getting it fixed. I had assumed it would be as easy this time. I don't know if Apple has changed their policies, outsourced AppleCare, or what since then, but it was certainly an unnecessary pain this time, both the useless original call and the inexplicable 40 minute second call (mostly on hold) while the agent tried to decide if and how to send me a drive, what drive to send me, etc. If I have any more problems I think I'll just go to the Apple Store instead of calling AppleCare. (Maybe that's what Apple wants?)