Solved: samsung dvd firmware issue

[hrtbob]

g'day,

my dvd player (samsung ts-h352a) has been having issues lately meaning that it very rarely reads any cd inside. It's light will slowly pulse but it does not sound like it spins up and then reports that there is no cd in the drive. all cd's are original manufacturer copies. I went to the samsung site to upgrade the firmware and it has offered me a *.bin file that has no windows assosciation. when i look for drivers through device manager it looks for only *.inf files. what am i doing wrong, any suggestions to alternate fixes perhaps?

cheers, Hrtbob

 

[qldit]

G'day hrtbob, that sounds rather ominous, is it possible to set it to first boot device?
Maybe trying a windows CD to boot from may tell a tale.
One other alterative is to obtain "simply mepis" (a linux operating system off the net, 500 megs of live system) This program will create a bootable CD which loads into memory as a ramdrive and operates apart from your hard drive stuff.
It detects virtually anything you have and is excellent to prove issues, it is GUI and similar to windows kind of operation.
You have to download it as an ISO and use a slightly different burning mode to create the bootable CD.
I would suspect your dvdrom has died, at least in the CD kind of mode.
If you have attempted to load it's firmware there is not much room for second tries.
Cheers, qldit. (rather cold here currently isn't it!)

 

[hrtbob]

hey there, the firmware has been updated with no apparent luck, dvd's work perfectly fine, i havent checked booting with a winxp cd yet but will tonight. I'm connected to the net via dialup so it is impossible to download that program you suggested thanks for the advice though.The computer is under warranty so i guess it is back to the shop with it... i just hate the inconveniance of not having my comp for an indeterminate period of time!

cheers Hrtbob

P.s. (cold...freezing! its still cold now, one of those days when you get the fire roaring and put on as many clothes as you own!)

 

[qldit]

G'day, even here in Brisbane I have had to put a jumper on, and it snowed in Mackay I believe, first time in more than forty years. Must've been a mountain their somewhere.
I am lucky I have access to ADSL, so getting these big downloads is no problem.
The Linux program I mentioned is incredible, it can see WXP ntfs or fat, and is really great for rescuing files off crashed MS systems. It also works really well on the net, if you get half a chance try to get it, "Simply MEPIS" it is an incredible introduction to Linux which I think is only going to be a short period before there is a mass exodus from MS stuff. It won't work with winmodems on the net, but with cable or dsl it is a pleasure use, no real worries about virus problems etc..
Best of luck with your CD testing.
Cheers, qldit.

 

[hrtbob]

Snowing in Mackay! Thats insane!!! I was in Noosa last week and whilst it did rain a LOT the temperature was still round the 20's consistently and not cold at night.
I have just purchased a dvd lens cleaner and a cd cleaner and after using both, still no luck.I'm checking the regedit atm to see if there is anything there...

interestingly, this doesnt have anything to do with the cd problem but i have a folder in hklm that is "courrentcontrolset" and contains a shutdown folder with fast reboot enabled. I dont think this should be here and that it is related to my computer randomly rebooting.

anyway back to the dvd drive, no good.back to the shop it goes.

 

[qldit]

G'day hrtbob, that random rebooting that many people have with windows is a real pain, also hard to troubleshoot.
I can't off-hand remember that area in WXP to disable it, but on occasions have found power supply problems involved that appear to be involved.
If you go into system tools > system information, you will open a window with a lot of info, there is a menubar there which has a "tools" item, sometimes this drop-down has an error log, where it logs malfunctioning programs etc, it is not apparent on machines without problems, but it often will give a clue as to buggy programs causing havoc and that kind of thing.
Another extremely useful tool is to download the "everest" home program (freebee) it gives incredible information about you machine. It is only a small windows program but one of the first pages in it has an icon labelled "sensors" this will give real time readings of voltages and temperatures in the box and also allow a better picture of what is happening.
There is a remote possibility the power supply may even be involved with your DVD problem.
The twelve volt rail should be somewhere around twelve volts, this doesn't appear to be really important, and of course is used for motors and grunt in the machine, the other voltages, most especially the five volt rail is really critical and commonly does have wierd problems if it gets much below 4.95 volts from my experience.
This rail is used for intelligent circuits and of course the readings you actually monitor would be averaged, so from time to time instantaneous voltage conditions would probably droop significantly below that level.
It would be worth your having a look and trying this incredible useful program, I think everyone should have it on their machines, it certainly saves a lot of guessing.
Those Samsung units are usually pretty good, actually most Samsung stuff is pretty reliable.
Best of luck, cheers, qldit.

 

[hrtbob]

afternoon,

installed that everest program but it hangs when it gets to scanning pci devices, i havent checked the support info yet to see if it has bugs with pci-e cards or anything of the like but that is the next step. An amazing thing happened yesterday, my other computer with a samsung dvd-rom stopped reading discs entirely! perhaps i'm going insane but this seems absurd that the two drives can call it quits at the exact time. there is no viruses that can attack drives is there?!?

I have a motherboard program that tells me my 12v rail hovers between 11.45 and 11.84v mainly the latter, it shows no mention of a 5v rail but does have a 3.3v rail, with a reading of 3.18v constant. any ideas?

cheers,

frozen Hrtbob.

 

[qldit]

G'day hrtbob, actually to tell the truth I really only ever use that everest program for having a look at the volts and temps, or an occasional ID of a component.
I have never tried it on a PCIE system.
As far as a Samsung drive killer being out there, I would have to suggest "no way" but as I mention I am normally wrong so reverse logic would indicate "possibly" as a more correct answer.
The five volt is really my major area of interest these days, I often have a look at machines just to check to see what it shows. Normally anything less than 4.95 volts generally tends to have odd intermittent problems. Machines showing 5.01 or so rarely have problems, of course this may not be really relevant but it certainly becomes circumstantially evident from my experience.
Just considering the events here, have you double checked your A/v results with a cross check using another program.
Cheers, qldit.

 

[hrtbob]

g'day qldit,

good news regarding the dvd-rom. I bought 'farcry' the other day but couldnt install it (on the cd drive) due to an apparent cd error, so looking on the net I came across a fix instructing me to look in:
admin tools--> local security policy--> local security settings-->local policies--> security options-->
"Devices:restrict cd-rom access to locally logged on user only" disable this setting.

so after disabling this, not only did the game work but the dvd-rom drive did too...JOY!!! now for the rest of the damn computer...but thats another thread

cheers!
Hrtbob