[X4U] DVD burner Drive affected by high temps and humidity?

[Stroller]

On 7 Sep 2006, at 20:58, Lee Licata wrote:
> ...
> While on holiday where temps were well above 80F most days and  
> nights, and humidity normally above 70%, and sometimes even close  
> to 90%, I tried to use my DVD drive to burn a DVD-R....
>
> Got back home and took it to my local Mac authorized repair shop,  
> described the problem, and asked him to replace the DVD drive.
> You can guess the rest of the story. He could find NOTHING wrong.  
> The drive worked fine.
> He thought the high temps and the wet weather was the cause...
> ...
> Anyone had this happen to them, or can confirm that high temps and  
> humidity might make a DVD drive not work correctly??

Thanks for describing the symptoms of your issue so clearly, Lee.

I have to ask - can you reproduce the problem now you're home? I  
mean, I'm sure you're not questioning the honesty of the Mac reseller  
you went to, but you say "HE could find nothing wrong. The drive  
worked fine".

If you check the drive yourself and the it works fine then it  
isolates the location as the problem - the drive works fine in one  
place for you, doesn't work in another for you. And then you'd KNOW  
the problem was environmental.

I find it extremely likely that this diagnosis is correct. Optical  
drives are notoriously finicky, and almost always start becoming  
unreliable and moody about certain brands of media after a couple of  
years. I always surmise this to my customers as "probably a bit of  
dust on the lens".

Optical writers work by pointing a laser at the disk and using that  
to change the colour of the optically-sensitive layer inside the CD.  
I'm sure you've seen movies in which the beams of the bad guys' laser  
sights become visible in a dusty or misty environment at night - if  
the humidity was so high then it's quite conceivable that some  
particles of moisture were forming inside the drive, and this would  
cause refraction of the laser.

I can't say for sure about the mechanical symptoms you describe - the  
disk not ejecting properly & so on. There's a big bit of me that's  
saying this is because the drive wasn't reading correctly the disk  
you've written, but I couldn't really justify that statement.  
Nevertheless, if the drive works fine ow you're back home then the  
cause surely has to be environmental.

If you look closely at the side of of your MacBook you'll see that  
the optical drive-slot is lined with felt. Maybe yours is missing a bit?

Stroller.