DVD-RW Tray Belt Replacement

So there I was sitting in front of my PC wanting to burn a music CD disc for my truck when I went to place the blank CD-R into my Lite-On DH20A4H drive all I heard was “whirr, whirr, whirr, chunk!” What had happened was my tray drive belt after 4 years gave up. This small belt drives the mechanism that opens the DVD-RW tray where you place your blank discs.

Interesting note I have two drives in my PC the other DVD-RW drive is 7 years old and is still working fine it’s the PHILIPS DVD+/-RW DVD8631. Its tray drive belt is way bigger than the Lite-On DH20A4H tray drive belt by about 10x!

To replace the tray drive belt remove the DVD-RW drive from the computer. Then use a paper clip to release the drive tray there should be a small hole right under the lower edge of the drive tray. Stick the straighten paper clip into that hole and the tray should pop-out. Then look for the tabs that hold the front faceplate there should be one on each side and one on the bottom. You have to press on the tab and wiggle the front faceplate off the case its best to start on one end and work your way to the middle/other side. Note when I first took off my faceplate there is a clip that holds the top of the faceplate that will come off by itself while you are wiggling it.

Now that you have the tray released and the faceplate detached flip the DVD-RW over to remove the case screws there should be (4) of them. By unscrewing these case screws you will be able to remove the DVD-RW top cover to gain access to the tray belt.

Once you have the top of the DVD-RW case removed you will be able to see the tray drive belt.

When my situation happened I used a small rubber band as a temporary fix until I could order an actual replacement tray drive belt. 

I could have just left it that way with the small rubber band, but I managed to find a replacement belt online. The belt is actually designed to fix a common problem for the Xbox 360 CD-ROM tray that won’t open (sounds familiar?) I got 10 belts for $2. So if it happens again I’ll be ready!

Note I ended up using an ear-cleaning tool that I had in my grooming kit that I never used (does anybody uses it?) it worked really well in handling the small drive belt. The tool had a small curved surface that worked great for cupping the drive belt to maneuver around the drive wheel. I first place the new drive belt over the small drive wheel and gently stretched it over and slid it around the bigger wheel. That’s it the Lite-On DH20A4H disc tray works like it did when I first got it! Hope this helps someone... if there is any questions ask in the comment area.

BAD CAPACITORS

OK I had this situation with my HP Pavilion A705W its an old computer I believe it was purchased back in 2005. The HP Pavilion A705W’s configuration is not bad at all it is still fast enough for general browsing the internet and emailing also for doing homework. For the most part it was doing well I maxed out the RAM memory to 1GB (not much by today’s standards) and added a case fan to keep things cool. The only thing that went bad after about 4 years or so was the power supply so that was replaced.

So now 3 years later... I noticed that the computer was taking longer to turn ON. Once on the Desktop launching programs seemed to take longer to load. At first I though maybe I had a virus or some kind of adware or malicious program lurking in my computer. After several scans nothing was found (this process takes time). So I thought what else could it be? Just to be through I took a look inside the computer case. Then I saw the bad capacitors on the motherboard most of them were leaking pretty bad couple of the smaller one were just bulge a little.

I gathered all the parts and the tools needed to do the job. I replaced the bad capacitors and since I had the case open I cleaned it out by using canned air. I then hooked everything back up, pressed the power button and... BAM it worked! The computer was working noticeably faster than it was before (back the way I remembered it working).

So in conclusion... don’t rule out the hardware if your computer is running slow especially on older computers. Run the scans first then if the scans find nothing then check inside the case and look at the components on the motherboard. See if there are any failed components. Hope this helps someone... if there is any questions ask in the comment area.

Here are some images of the bad capacitors:

Wireless-N PCI-E x1 Card

So I wanted to add wireless connectivity to my Dell XPS 200 desktop PC, but its one of these small form factor (SFF) PC’s so I needed to find a low profile wireless card that would fit in my Dell XPS 200 desktop PC. My computer is old, but still is in good working order so I want to add to its functionality by making it wireless so I can place it anywhere in my home. Because of its size I was planning on using it as a Media Room PC.

Ok if your not in a rush and are able to check eBay daily for great deals on computer parts you may find some exceptional deals. I found a “HP Anatel RT3090PCIE-C1 3025-09-4419 LP Low Profile Wireless PCI-E WLAN Card” within my budget for this upgrade. When buying previously own parts look for words like “tested, pulled from a working system, new, and guaranty no DOA (Dead On Arrival).”

The HP Anatel RT3090PCIE-C1 3025-09-4419 LP Low Profile Wireless PCI-E WLAN Card arrived and I forgot to mention this card did not come with an antenna and no installation disc or any set up guides. As far as the antenna any RP-SMA antenna will work. I already had a RP-SMA antenna I was not using. If you don’t have one they are readily available on eBay and are not expensive at all.

When installing the card and you are running Windows XP the OS will not install the drivers automatically. No fret you can get it here (click here). When I did this on my Dell XPS 200 the file downloaded just fine and it extracted just fine, but it would not continue to install; the install program just stops after the extraction with no indications. Note remember where it exacted this is important because in this folder there is a Drivers folder that has the driver you need.

The workaround. In Windows XP right click on My Computer, click on Properties, click on Hardware tab, click on the Device Manager button. When you see the Device Manager window you will notice an “unknown device” with a yellow check mark next to it. Right click on it and click on “Update Driver” now browse to the location of the Driver folder select the Windows XP driver and now wait until it the OS finishes installing the driver. When its done you will see in the Device Manager no unknown devices (no yellow check marks) and you will find the wireless card in your Network Adapters listing.

The performance. The HP Anatel RT3090PCIE-C1 3025-09-4419 LP Low Profile Wireless PCI-E WLAN Card works great! I was really impressed with the speed keep in mind all of my PC’s are 4-7 years old! Awhile back I bought a wireless-N router at a Black Friday sale, but this was my first wireless-N card I installed in one of my PC’s and wow now I want to upgrade my other PC’s with wireless-N connectivity. The HP Anatel RT3090PCIE-C1 3025-09-4419 LP Low Profile Wireless PCI-E WLAN Card was connecting at 135 Mbps! The computer I’m on right now is connected with a wireless-G PCI card and it’s connecting at 36 Mbps.

Note if you are running Windows 7 then the HP Anatel RT3090PCIE-C1 3025-09-4419 LP Low Profile Wireless PCI-E WLAN Card will install automatically no need to hunt for the drivers. If you have any questions about this install or want to find out how it’s performing then please leave a comment and I will get back with you. Have a great day!

From Black Friday to Cyber Monday

This will be a short post about from Black Friday to Cyber Monday. I had always heard of people purchasing items on Black Friday and placing the items up on Cyber Monday which is the following Monday after Black Friday. The venue is eBay where you can find just about anything you can possibly think of... well sort of. Mostly electronic stuff, clothing, kid stuff, CDs/DVDs and parts to fix just about anything that needs to be fixed.

I ended up purchasing a $198 laptop just to try and sell it on eBay on Cyber Monday. Needless to say the whole process was kinda exciting, as I never did anything like that before. I mean I sold small stuff on eBay but nothing really that valuable and expensive. As a pointer if you are planning to do this it’s important to really understand the shipping cost and also the eBay and PayPal fees involved. Most people usually miss estimate on the shipping cost (as I did) it only needs to happen once. Best thing to do is place the item(s) in the box you are planning to ship it in pack it like you are going to ship it. Then take it down to the Post Office and say, “What would the shipping be for all the 50 States?” This way it really gives you an idea of what to expect. When you do up an eBay page it gives you the cost of that page upon completion so you know what the cost is. But PayPal fees are a little more confusing (sort of) I find by using the eBay support chat works well in figuring out what PayPal fee are going to be.

Oh if your wondering... I still made out on the sale. But the most important thing is I had fun doing it!

Black Friday 2009

It seems every year last minute we would decide if we are going to attend the coveted Black Friday event at a our local Walmart. This year my brother in law’s laptop was giving some problems, being that it was 3 years old, he decided he want a new laptop. I told him about Wally Mart’s laptop deal made by eMachines for $198! So we decide let’s go and get this laptop so I asked “What time do you want to leave (as he was driving)?” He said “4 am…” He then called me back 15 minutes later and said “Better make that 3:30 am…” Another 15-20 minutes later… “Better make that midnight… we’re leaving at midnight…” I said “Midnight…!?! (Pause) OK, I’m game…” See I’ve been to couple of the Black Friday Wally Mart sales what I remembered was just waiting in a long line in the dark and it was cold… and did I say that the line was really long? Most times by the time you get into the store the item you waited for or wanted was sold out as Walmart just brings in a limited amount of the sale items.

This year was the first year I went 5 hours before the sale started and to my surprise Walmart was open when we got there. Apparently they were open 24 hours that day and had the entire sale items wrapped up in cardboard with signs on them saying “(Item Name) for 5 am Sale” and you could not purchase the item until 5 am. How they handle the big-ticket items like laptops, flat screen TVs, game units, etc. they gave you a ticket number where each ticket corresponds to one item. In the $198 sale model laptop there were only 30 available! And my brother in law got the last one!

Walmart had aisles roped off (in some case they had more than one item per line) for each of the big-ticket items when you got a ticket you had to wait in a line and could take 15 minutes bathroom breaks, but you had to turn in your ticket if you don’t return in 15 minutes your ticket will be given to someone else.

I have to confess something I got caught up in the moment and bought one these $198 laptop. I always heard about people buying stuff on Black Friday and Ebaying it on Cyber Monday. So I gave it a shot with this laptop (but that’s another story).

I set up the eMachines laptop for my brother in law that we got from Walmart and I was really impressed with that model especially for that price tag. It was a very capable performer it did everything my brother in law needed it to do (and more!). I ended up taking some video with my Nikon L5 digital camera of the set up I was planning on using it for my eBay page you can see the video below...

My New Year’s Resolution for 2010

My New Year’s resolution for 2010 is to start using this blog I created as sort of a repository of all things that I find net worthy, interesting, and helpful to me a sort of online notebook not so much a journal, but a place for my thoughts and ramblings. There a lot times when I would get these ideas and think “Wouldn’t it be great to just jot these thoughts down somewhere…?” Much Kudos to Google, YouTube, and PhotoBucket for making this a reality for lots people. The ability to convey an idea or thought or simple praise or a place to rant about something it’s a great stress relief. I’m really not sure how often I will post but I am going to try hard to be diligent at this New Year’s resolution.