CD-RW drive not always present and locks system

[Rick Garland]

Hi all:

Got a Dell Latitude D600 loaded with RH ES 3.0.
This laptop did not come with a CD-RW drive (only a DVD) so I purchased a I/O Magic USB CD-RW drive for the system.

Trouble is only part of the time does it see the CD-RW drive. When it does I have noticed that the system will lock up after about 16 hrs as well.

Questions, why is the system not recognizing the /dev/cdrom1 drive and when it does recognize the cdrom1 drive the system will lock up after so much time?

Many thanks

[Steven E. Protter]

The first thing I'd do is get hooked up with Dell and run the system utilities CD they ship with all systems.

That cd can be booted off of and will enable you to test all major hardware componeents including memory and motherboard.

If the system clears that take a look into the add in drive being bad. Check the cable and run the system with the drive not hooked up. If it doesn't hang, you have narrowed the issue a great deal.

Dell technical support sometimes needs to be prodded to do their job, so if you get bad results from the test cd press them hard. If any component fails test, make them replace it or the laptop.

Next I'd see if the drivers and device are certified with Red Hat 3 and your drivers are up to date. Then I'd post results here and get some more ideas.

Good Luck,

I took a $173 hit because I had a memory chip that was bad and didn't run the Dell test. Interestingly enough tech support was happy to make that suggestion AFTER the warrantly had expired.

Also make sure you activate your 30 return policy so can return the laptop if it turns out to be a lemon.

SEP

[Rick Garland]

Found a pattern and it seems to be with the screensaver.

If I lock the screen with the screensaver then I have the trouble of the system locking and so on. If I log out I have been able to leave the system for over 36 hrs with no troubles.

This is where I am going to direct my attentions.

Any other ideas, pass them on.

Thanks!