VERY weird computer problem
Jan. 19th, 2006 03:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eclectic_boyUntil 45 minutes ago, it was looking like I was gonna hafta make the long SEPTrek to the Apple Store in King of Prussia, to hand over my laptop for however long it'd take them to replace the CD/DVD drive. Because wow, was I having
I was listing CDs for auction on ebay tonight, and around 11 I popped in one of the first discs I'd listed, for background music while I worked on the rest. Twenty minutes into the CD it started skipping terribly, which really got my attention, because when I'd listened to it the day before it'd been fine, and when I'd inspected the disc for grading it just an hour before it had also been fine! I ejected it.... or tried to. The disc made the usual semicomplaining eject noises, but didn't actually pop out the disc. I've heard dying ejectable drives before, and that's the kind of thing that happens with a weak mechanism. I tried again, and this time it actually came out. I flipped the disc over, and saw there was a big scratched spot, about 1 cm in diameter, that was definitely not there before.
I realized that I'd had difficulty ejecting several times tonight, and went back to look at some of those discs. All had new scratches, though fortunately only one looked serious. So my drive was doing something horrible to them. To check, I took a useless disc (I have a bunch of AOL CDs lying around), and confirmed it: pristine surface --> twenty seconds in my CD drive --> difficulty ejecting --> a scuffed spot and an inch long scratch.
I went online to look at whether any of the usual suspects (Apple discussion boards, macfixit...) had words of wisdom about this problem, but while I found a surprising number of messages describing drives that refuse to eject CDs, nothing talked about scratches, so I figured that wasn't the same problem. I looked into reserving a timeslot at the Apple Store support bar, and tried one thing: the fact that it was also slightly harder than usual to put a CD into the slot made me wonder if my iBook had gotten too overheated, and physically narrowed the slot by thermal expansion. Rather than shut down for an hour, I just propped the computer up on some makeshift legs so air could flow under it for cooling. After an hour of that the iBook certainly felt cooler... but another AOL disc met its fate proving that the problem was still there.
This was serious, not just because of how much I rely on the ability to play CDs when I'm writing up their descriptions, but also because Noda's laptop is broken and I wanted to be able to let him use my iBook (and to have his around to use if/when my laptop needed to go out for repairs). My plan as of 2AM was to shut down the computer to let it really cool off, get up at 9 and see whether the problem was still happening, and if so head out on the trek to the Apple Store. But just to try one more thing, I first restarted. And then I heard it: when the computer had finished shutting down, there was an unusual two-second mechanical noise from my CD drive, nothing I'd heard before. Something was resetting, or more plausibly disengaging -- I now think something had made the drive stay locked in a 'play' position rather than withdrawing to allow the disc to move, even when trying to eject the disc. So essentially the drive was trying to take the foot out of the shoe without loosening the laces first. That's my rationalization of the data, anyway. The upshot is, everything has worked fine since -- first with another AOL disc and now with something more valuable.
I still want to go to the Apple Store at some point, to see if it can troubleshoot my Airport Extreme, which seems dramatically worse than that of any other iBooks I've compared it to -- I have trouble picking up the signal when I'm in the living room, ten feet away from the base station in Noda's room. But that's for another time. Now's for sleep.
I was listing CDs for auction on ebay tonight, and around 11 I popped in one of the first discs I'd listed, for background music while I worked on the rest. Twenty minutes into the CD it started skipping terribly, which really got my attention, because when I'd listened to it the day before it'd been fine, and when I'd inspected the disc for grading it just an hour before it had also been fine! I ejected it.... or tried to. The disc made the usual semicomplaining eject noises, but didn't actually pop out the disc. I've heard dying ejectable drives before, and that's the kind of thing that happens with a weak mechanism. I tried again, and this time it actually came out. I flipped the disc over, and saw there was a big scratched spot, about 1 cm in diameter, that was definitely not there before.
I realized that I'd had difficulty ejecting several times tonight, and went back to look at some of those discs. All had new scratches, though fortunately only one looked serious. So my drive was doing something horrible to them. To check, I took a useless disc (I have a bunch of AOL CDs lying around), and confirmed it: pristine surface --> twenty seconds in my CD drive --> difficulty ejecting --> a scuffed spot and an inch long scratch.
I went online to look at whether any of the usual suspects (Apple discussion boards, macfixit...) had words of wisdom about this problem, but while I found a surprising number of messages describing drives that refuse to eject CDs, nothing talked about scratches, so I figured that wasn't the same problem. I looked into reserving a timeslot at the Apple Store support bar, and tried one thing: the fact that it was also slightly harder than usual to put a CD into the slot made me wonder if my iBook had gotten too overheated, and physically narrowed the slot by thermal expansion. Rather than shut down for an hour, I just propped the computer up on some makeshift legs so air could flow under it for cooling. After an hour of that the iBook certainly felt cooler... but another AOL disc met its fate proving that the problem was still there.
This was serious, not just because of how much I rely on the ability to play CDs when I'm writing up their descriptions, but also because Noda's laptop is broken and I wanted to be able to let him use my iBook (and to have his around to use if/when my laptop needed to go out for repairs). My plan as of 2AM was to shut down the computer to let it really cool off, get up at 9 and see whether the problem was still happening, and if so head out on the trek to the Apple Store. But just to try one more thing, I first restarted. And then I heard it: when the computer had finished shutting down, there was an unusual two-second mechanical noise from my CD drive, nothing I'd heard before. Something was resetting, or more plausibly disengaging -- I now think something had made the drive stay locked in a 'play' position rather than withdrawing to allow the disc to move, even when trying to eject the disc. So essentially the drive was trying to take the foot out of the shoe without loosening the laces first. That's my rationalization of the data, anyway. The upshot is, everything has worked fine since -- first with another AOL disc and now with something more valuable.
I still want to go to the Apple Store at some point, to see if it can troubleshoot my Airport Extreme, which seems dramatically worse than that of any other iBooks I've compared it to -- I have trouble picking up the signal when I'm in the living room, ten feet away from the base station in Noda's room. But that's for another time. Now's for sleep.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 02:31 pm (UTC)My old PowerBook (June 2002) often overheats, and the fan goes nutso-loud, and I often leave it sitting on a table on its side, screen open 90-degrees, to maximize cooling area. After ten or fifteen minutes, it calms down. I can't remember if it was always this way, or if it used to run cooler in its first couple years.
Whereas my new PowerBook (May 2005) maintains a constant surface temperature of about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter how long it's been running or in active use, even when sitting on a table or a lap or in a backpack for hours or days--and I've never heard the fan. I don't know how this is possible--it always feels cool as ice (well, almost) even on warm summer days when I have fifteen applications open and I'm burning a CD.
I've been having some weird AirPort issues, too, but not that bad--every now and then the signal will drop from 3-4 bars to 0-1 bars for just a few seconds, and then return, without the laptop having moved. I have no idea if this is an AirPort problem or an AirPort card problem; do you know for sure that your problem is laptop-based and not base-station-based?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 03:20 am (UTC)(Hey, are there three like-minded singers who'd be interested in spending an afternoon or two learning it?)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 01:58 pm (UTC)oh, that's not So You Want To Write A Fugue? :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-21 07:11 am (UTC)Problem is, I'm not much of a singer.