iBook: haunted DVD tray

[nervouk]

hi,

I have a strange problem with my iBook 700 CD/RW-DVD tray: it pops open whenever the computer starts up or wakes up from sleep. It also opens of its own accord at seemingly random intervals... (spooky as well as irritating). I've tried simply holding it shut, but it just makes repeated clicking sounds until I take my finger away. The tray then ejects. Is this a hardware or software issue, or is my computer possessed?

i've tried all the usual tricks; eg zapping the PRAM, sacrificing a goat, but nothing has worked yet.

 

[chornbe]

Have you ever spilled anything in/on your iBook? They're designed to auto-eject if they can't ID the disk that is inserted. If things are dirty in there, it *might* be under the impression there's something in it that it can't identify and hence tries to toss it out.

Go hit the store and grab a drive cleaning disk, a can of compressed air or some other recommened drive cleaning technique and see if that helps.

 

[nervouk]

Thanks for the advice. It didn't solve the disc tray problem but it definitely needed a good clean in there all the same. I might take it down to the Genius Bar, but their solution to everything seems to be "you should buy a new one."