Thinkpads Forum

Hi, i have purchased a dvd-burner LG GSA-4083N (fru 39T2679) used but working that's not working!!! XD
Reading discs takes a little bit longer, burning dvd-r does not finalize the disc, and cd-rw are not recognized at all. After i took it from the T60, i heard a tickling sound, opened the tray and a small screw popped out! Watched a video on how to open a slim drive and it turns to be a screw holding the pcb inside the drive. Fixed that nothing changed Seller told me he can send me another one without the need to send it back. I would like to know if i can recover it.
TIA

Hi, I personally don't think there's that much value in these drives. If the seller can send you a replacement just throw the old one out.. I imagine if they are sold on ebay they should be pretty cheap. T60 themselves are no longer super-valuable and their CD drives much less so.

Update: took me a while to realize that you didn't buy a T60 with a non-working DVD-writer. You did buy a DVD-writer that doesn't work. Apologies for an unhelpful comment.

These drives do fail with time. I have 3 different drives of this generation - two from Panasonic/M a t s u s h i t a, one LG 4083N like yours. They all started as new, and worked well. With time they all started getting finicky - they don't read certain types of disks, or read them sporadically.

I recall reading somewhere about people cleaning some sort of lens inside old CD drives.. Something that collects dust.. Don't remember the details

You can certainly clean the lens with an alcohol-soaked q-tip. I've tried it a couple of times, but whatever small improvement I saw may have been random.

But it's at least possible, and in fact it is much easier to do on a laptop optical drive than a desktop drive, because the lens is integrated in the tray and just popping it out exposes it, whereas a desktop drive usually requires some disassembly to reach it.

Just make sure you use the 91% Isopropyl. The 70% has stuff in it that doesn't lend to a good cleaning.

Got a bottle which claims to be 99.9%
Not sure if they're honest

It's probably for real. You don't need that high, except for specific applications though.

Hi, There used to be CD/DVD cleaning kits supposedly cleaning the lens with soft bristles. Also the lens itself can be replaced on some slim units if you can find a compatible one. Maybe a second hand working donor unit to experiment with swapping the lens. Also the drives themselves have firmware updates, assuming your windows drivers are ok or working on maybe compatibility mode, have you checked if there is a firmware update? You also mentioned the seller is willing to send a replacement free , so you have that if you dont want to tinker.
Vopu

Vopu wrote:Hi, There used to be CD/DVD cleaning kits supposedly cleaning the lens with soft bristles. Also the lens itself can be replaced on some slim units if you can find a compatible one. Maybe a second hand working donor unit to experiment with swapping the lens. Also the drives themselves have firmware updates, assuming your windows drivers are ok or working on maybe compatibility mode, have you checked if there is a firmware update? You also mentioned the seller is willing to send a replacement free , so you have that if you dont want to tinker.
Vopu

Seems there is no firmware update available for that model. Also, the seller told me he sends 2 dvd burner, without the need to send the broken one back... Makes me think that it was a bit overpriced in first take...

devinfriday wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 09, 2020 5:40 pm

Also, the seller told me he sends 2 dvd burner, without the need to send the broken one back... Makes me think that it was a bit overpriced in first take...

Hi , would you mind sharing how much you have paid for this slim in the first place, makes me wonder if the seller had known this is a DOA unit all along since he is willing to send 2 replacement already?
As said, check your drivers for your OS first, than I would ask for the replacement, these units go around 10$ so i wouldn't sweat too much on it.
Vopu

I bought a T6x DVD burner for a T4x some 6 years ago for like C$15 and it's still working till this day - although the face plate has lost some plastic clips for some reason so it flaps around a little.
And yes these drives do fail over time. I have had a number of finicky T4x drives where one doesn't read DVD's at all despite it being CD-RW/DVD-ROM, one works but sometimes take many attempts to close properly, and another that kept ejecting on its own. The latter two I have fixed by bending the latch and putting extra things on the plastic that the latch latches onto.
I also have a number of Dell D-bay DVD drives from the exact same era that I have fixed with cleaning the heads with alcohol, lubricating the metal bars that the head assembly moves onto, and then making it read a variety of discs several times (perhaps it helps with self calibration?)

Vopu wrote:

devinfriday wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 09, 2020 5:40 pm

Also, the seller told me he sends 2 dvd burner, without the need to send the broken one back... Makes me think that it was a bit overpriced in first take...

Hi , would you mind sharing how much you have paid for this slim in the first place, makes me wonder if the seller had known this is a DOA unit all along since he is willing to send 2 replacement already?
As said, check your drivers for your OS first, than I would ask for the replacement, these units go around 10$ so i wouldn't sweat to much on it.
Vopu

About 9,89€ plus 4,59€ shipping. I am using windows 7, drivers are the latest from microsoft...

These are Ultrabay Slim, right? they should be plentiful on ebay. I have nearly 2 per machine for my T40 & T60 series.

The 2 drives are here! The first one i've tried worked!!!! Now i have a SLIC 2.1 bios without whitelist Almost ready for sell it, still waitin' for the T500 heatsink...