I have a sony 52x Cd-Rom...now that i got that out the way let mme explain my problems
1.) If i go to a store and buy a game..i put it into my Cd rom and it works...but during installation when the cd-rom is copying to the hard drive, the computer works for about 10 secs and then everything just pauses for 5 secs (even the mouse wont move for these 5 secs)..then the computer repeats the cycle ,so this keeps going on and on, so my installations take forever! (And they are not like this on even slower systems than mine and i have a via chipset with p3 800 mhz)
2.) Anything i burn wont work (expect for some things but Cd-R CD's wont work)...I put these CDs into my computer and they just spin inside my cdrom and the green light just keeps flashing in the cdrom...and i have left it there forever and nohting happens (the computer because real slow and u cant move the mouse o anything until u take the cd ..no blue screen)I have a ton of these Cds and they all work on another computer..THE STRANGE THING IS SOMETIMES IT READS THESE DATA DISCS AS AUDIO CDS!!!
I might also add that if i go to Control Panel>system>device managerl, under Via Bus master IDE PCI controller there is a yellow exclamation point next to "Primary IDE Controller(dual fifo)"
so....what do i do...considering i have the latest drivers for my via chipset and my cdrom
plz help
may just be the lens on the reader needs cleaned, as far as the yellow ! next to the ide controller, try removing it from the device manager, reboot, let it reinstall, driver may not have fully loaded on install. being that it is a 52x drive you may need to slow the cd read speed down a bit to correctly read some disk.
http://download.com.com/3000-2086-10164235.html?tag=list
that link is for a program called cd speed, it has a free trial, try using it to slow read speeds down a bit and if you still have the trouble.
When I upgraded my computer from a P3 to an Athlon, the same kinds of weirdness was presented to me.
Sometimes my machine would freeze for 2 seconds, other times it would freeze for 10 seconds.
Or my computer would crash upon spin up of the CD-ROM drive. The most notable problem came during copying of one CD to a new CD-R.
With both drives running, no CD-R burn would work.
Turns out my 300w Powersupply was 'weak' in the 3.3/5 volt 'common' supply.
To solve the problem? Purchased a 350w EnerMax PowerSupply, and *all* problems promptly went away.
So, in my recommendation, please check things in this order:
1) Rating of Powersupply. The overall designation of say 300w isn't clear enough. For today's power hungry 50x (or more) CD-ROM, 7200 RPM (or more) harddrives, a cheap 300w powersupply may not be enough.
2) You need to know the 3.3/5v wattage rating as well. My EnerMax 350w PowerSupply is rated for 185 watts total on the 3.3/5v lines. Some cheaper powersupplies will be weak in this area, my previous powersupply was rated only for 150w, and it was not enough (CPU core power is drawn from the 3.3v line, which is the easiest voltage from the power supply to bring down to the lower-voltage CPU. My Athlon for example, consumes a staggering 66 to 68 watts all by itself).
3) Check how many devices you are powering. A typical machine has one hardrrive, maybe two, and one CD-R/RW/ROM drive. If you are powering big video card and/or more than one CD-R/ROM drive and/or 2 7200 RPM harddrives then a higher quality powersupply is definitely needed.
4) A weak powersupply can cause all sorts of PnP and RAM corruptions. Often Windows settings or known chipset don't seem to work well, even though you've installed the appropriate drivers. This happens especially during CD-ROM spin up time, which is, of course, the time most software gets installed nowadays.
4) IF you are sure that your powersupply is good, then my next best recommendation is to check the integrity of your RAM. MemTest86 is a very good memory tester, and beyond the powersupply issue, bad RAM is usually the next most likely culprit.