CD drive life span

Within the last year I have had three DVD units go out.
I bought moderately priced units, mostly at an electronic supermarket.
So is buying a Lexus drive going to last longer than a Chevy player?

Just as a note, I tried 3 discs, and none loaded. The yellow activity ligh comes on, then after a few moments goes off but does not blink while on.


:confusedSarge

 

All components should have a warranty for at least a year with the retailer and usually drives have a three year warranty with the manufacturer so I would either stop using that retailer or stop using the manufacturer.

In my experience disk drives are one of the more bulletproof components and I've only had one drive die on me is my 15 or so years playing with pc's and I've only ever fixed one computer with a damaged drive,if I build a cheap internet computer for someone have no problem grabbing a drive from the huge pile I have of them and throwing it in.

I'd be interested to hear what other peoples experiences are with drives.

Do you do a lot of high speed burning? This is the most stressful thing you can do to drive,if your burning with high quality disks at full speed every day I can imagine the motor bearing failing much sooner,by that I mean within 3 years it could fail,not three in one year:-D

Ever disassemble a drive? If you take it apart you'll have easy access to the moving parts for cleaning and most importantly clean the lens,a bit of dust or build up on the lens will stop it functioning and stop functioning in the way your describing,you insert a disk it spins up but doesn't find a disk.

 

My experience has been a PC drive will normally first lose its burning capabilities and work in playback only mode before dying completely. I suspect this may be due to a dimming or reduction in the laser's power but I'm not sure.

The brand of drive also makes a difference. I've had the best luck with ASUS and Pioneer. Lite-On is the worst.

A bit off topic; however I do know that laser failures on PS3 and XBox consoles are quite common. I have a tech who does game console repairs for my shop and get several units in for repairs that have stopped reading DVDs every month.

I've also found that lens cleaning discs are rarely effective in restoring a drive's ability to burn or play back properly.

 

Quite a few years ago I had a friend that had CD/DVD drives fail within a few weeks period after being installed.

It turned out to be a faulty power supply that was causing all the problems.