How can you tell when a burner is dying?

[i am x]

Has anyone out there actually had a burner die on them, and if so, what were the "telltale" signs either on the burner itself, or on the discs it burned soon before it died? My burner [GSA LG-4040B] works fine, but I just want to know some of the things that burners do before they go completely out. It would be nice to know what clues I need to look for that might let me know it's time to get another burner. I use this burner a LOT. So far I've burned about 500 discs on it, and there are THOUSANDS more on the horizon that I will be burning.

[unclebud]

I've had 2 CD burners die over the last 4 years and both quit burning before they quit reading disks.

[noki]

two items mentioned in past posts are...
1. a darker burn ring on the burn side of disc along with the regular burn.
2. inability to burn at top speed (ie your 4x media can burn at 1 or 2 but not at 4 like it previously did). and it's progressive...4x when new(er), then 2x, finally 1x for a successful burn.

and there are THOUSANDS more on the horizon that I will be burning.

you going into production

[WaferJ]

I think mine just died... What I noticed was inconsistant ability to burn - sometimes it would work fine, then I would try to burn the same image on the same type of disk and it would get one of several different errors. Recently I was able to burn several disks "successfuly" (or so nero says), but when I try to play the disk it doesn't work. Tried taking it apart and cleaning it but still no luck. So after making about 20 coasters over the last couple of weeks I've given up and am looking for a new burner...

[redwudz]

What I got is 'power calibration errors' with no changes in software or disks. Then it quickly died. Some power calibration errors are dirty lens, but it quit completely before I got a chance to clean the lens. Usually the first suspicion is random writing errors, then sudden failure.