[buffalolee]

I had been fiddling around with my Powerbook's Superdrive for over a week. No matter what CD's I put in there, the PB would always spit it back out after it tasted it.

I tried everything that I could think of. Cleaning out the lens, re-installing the operating system, and forcing the PB to eat the CD and not spit it out. After I tried all of those things, it still wanted to spit it out.

So I gave up, and started looking for a new Superdrive for my Powerbook. I could only find one place that sold them for a reasonable price ($130 vs $180). Unfortunately, they were out of stock. So I would have to wait a while before I can purchase one for my Powerbook.

Then one day, I wanted to find the IP address that my Powerbook was using. I wanted to connect my WinXP machine to it to transfer files between them. Then I noticed something on the System Profiler. It showed I had 512MB of ram instead of 1GB.

A lightbulb went on above my head, and I reseated my RAM. Once I reseated the RAM, my CD / DVD drive started working again. In fact, I think it works better due to that fact that I also cleaned out the lens too (it has some blue covering, probably due to sharpie ink).

So that is how I solved my CV/DVD drive ejection problem, reseated the RAM on my Powerbook. The RAM was partially unseated mainly because I had tinkered with the motherboard a few weeks back. I remembered I had to clean out the motherboard with alcohol and cotton swabs because of a static noise problem with the audio. That was due to some coca cola being spilled behind the Powerbook on top of the lid.

A solution used to a seeminly unrelated problem. I hope this helps for some of you.

[ibook_steve]

I seriously doubt that the memory seating had anything to do with the optical drive failure. Unseated RAM either doesn't show up to the machine, as was your case, or prevents the machine from booting at all. Is this a Titanium or Aluminum PB? I ask because how could you see that there was anything on the optical drive lense with a slot load drive? When you say you cleaned the motherboard, did you take the whole thing apart? You might not have reconnected the optical drive correctly and reseating the RAM happened to push the motherboard enough to contact the optical drive connector. Reseating RAM is not the solution to an optical drive problem. Reseating an Airport card, on the other hand, could help because Airport is a PCI device.

Steve

[buffalolee]

I am serious about this.

Titanium G4 1GHZ with 1GB RAM.

Since my Powerbook was out of warranty, I really didn't want to spend the money to fix it. I would pay to fix if I had to, but I was not that point yet. When the Superdrive stopped working, I rechecked all of my connectors and everything. Nothing worked. The PB kept on spitting out my CDs, DVDs, and all other media.

Then when I noticed my Powerbook was only showing 512MB of RAM, and not 1 GB, then that is I got this idea in my head that it was the RAM. How they are related, I do not know. I can not even give you an explanation for why RAM would affect the Superdrive.

Once I pushed the RAM backed in, I tested the Superdrive. It started to work like magic. I was amazed and dumbfounded at the same time. It also made me happy that I didn't have to spend $130+ for a new Superdrive.

Maybe you want to try it out yourself?

QUOTE]Originally posted by ibook_steve:
I seriously doubt that the memory seating had anything to do with the optical drive failure. Unseated RAM either doesn't show up to the machine, as was your case, or prevents the machine from booting at all. Is this a Titanium or Aluminum PB? I ask because how could you see that there was anything on the optical drive lense with a slot load drive? When you say you cleaned the motherboard, did you take the whole thing apart? You might not have reconnected the optical drive correctly and reseating the RAM happened to push the motherboard enough to contact the optical drive connector. Reseating RAM is not the solution to an optical drive problem. Reseating an Airport card, on the other hand, could help because Airport is a PCI device.

Steve [/QUOTE]