R.I.P. - Sony DRU-500AX...Please help!

[MJDore]

Anybody have any experience with this drive and its apparent sudden instability? I have used it for the better part of a year now with little or no problems. That was until yesterday. Every 3 out of 5 burns now create coasters. I have used two different kinds of media...Sony and Ritek GO4. Both of them have caused the same issues. And, I have used to different types of burning software....Decrypter and Nero. Again, both have caused issues. This tells me that its the burner that is at fault. Oh...that and the fact that one time I ejected a disc and the tray would not close back. I had to reboot to get it to suck the tray back in!!!!!

Anyway, I was using firmware 2.0g when the trouble started and I updated to 2.0h thinking it would fix my problems....nope. Same ole, same ole.

Anybody have any experience or advice before I go out and buy a new burner? Thanks in advance.

Edit: Forgot to add this. I stuck LOTR in to see if it would simply play a DVD and it worked fine.

[handyguy]

Try the old firmware if you have it. I gave up updating firmware as why change it if it works fine?

[igalan]

At what speed do you burn? A couple of months ago I found that for some weird reason Nero 5.5 wanted to burn 2x DVD-R media at 2,4x (I didn't change the firmware or anything). I had to manually select 2x or else most burns were coasters (but not all). Now I upgraded to Nero 6 and no problem, it will properly detect the correct speed with the same media.

If that's not the problem, then it looks to me that the unit is dying. If it's under warranty I would go for this. I have upgraded mine to 2.0h and I have found no difference from 2.0g...

[Turtle49]

I had wierd inexplicable errors with my DRU-500AX last summer when my office got too warm. On the cool days...no issue, on the warm days I would get coasters no matter what I did.

Don't know if this helps, but I thought I would share.

[Popee]

I just sent my 500ax back to Sony under warranty.

See if it burns CD's OK. Also, see if it READS DVD's ALL THE TIME (try several) including original movie DVD's. If you have either of those 2 problems then the laser pickup for the DVD is going bad.

Hopefully, it is still under warranty.

[MJDore]

Thanks to all for the responses. Unfortunately, my warranty expired about 8 days ago. Doesn't that always happen?

Turtle49, you may be onto something. Its obviously far from hot here in TN but the computer is in an upstairs room that stays warmer than the rest of the house. By warmer, I don't mean sweltering heat. But it probably reaches 71 degrees or so. I'll try it early in the AM and see if that makes a difference. Its usually not warmed up very much by then.