Blank CD-R makes W2K reboot

Factual Questions
1

This just started happening and it’s driving me nuts.

Putting a blank CD-R into my drive results in the following: Drive spins up, activity light blinks for a few seconds as it scans the disc, activity light goes away and then a couple of seconds later my PC reboots. This happens with multiple blank CD-R discs but not with discs that have something on them (including CD-Rs from the same batch that I’ve burned info onto).

Haven’t found anything at MS knowledgebase, online forums or sites for various component manufacturers. Help me Dopers, you’re my only hope!

System is:

Shuttle SN41G2 w/AMD 2700. nVidia nForce2 chipset.
2x512mb PC333 DDR ram.
Seagate 120mb ATA 100 HD.
Liteon LTC 48161H combo drive - CDR/W, DVDROM.
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb AGP video card. ATI own brand, not 3rd party.

Windows 2000, SP4. Uptodate with all critical updates except as noted below.

Has latest BIOS update from Shuttle, recent chipset drivers from nVidia (v3.13, April 14, 2004). Latest 4.4 Catalyst drivers from ATI (downloaded today, 5/1/2004). Put all memory timing back to the generic manufacturer defaults. No overclocking.

This started happening sometime after I downloaded the last couple of critical updates from MS (about 1-2 weeks ago) so I removed those (Q835732 and Q837001) and also around the time that I put the new video card in (prior to that was ATI Radeon 7200, one driver rev prior so about 2 weeks older). Updated mobo BIOS today during troubleshooting.

Removed/reinstalled Liteon drive. Checked for driver or firmware updates at Liteon’s website (nothing).

Only thing showing in the event logs are the memory dumps when I put a blank CD-R in the drive.

In addition, when I plug in my external USB drive case the system really slows to a crawl (it worked fine a couple weeks ago).

Any good ideas? Beer to the person who nails the problem :slight_smile:

2

Not familiar with MS-W2k, but for the MS-Win9* line, you get a lot of trouble from having “auto-insert notification” on.

Turn that off.

There could also be 3rd party software that is checking all discs for some idiotic reason. Check everything that’s running and see if any are CD related.

3

I did try turning autoplay off, no difference. Again, everything was working just fine ~2 weeks ago (the last time I recall burning a CD). Only things that have changed in that time are:

  1. Couple of MS “Critical” updates.
  2. Regular Symantec A/V updates.
  3. New video card.

Incident report with a jillion details sent to ATI, we’ll see if that was it…

4

Do you have any Roxio CD-Burning software installed? In paticular DirectCD?

I’ve never seen spontaneous reboots but have had tons of trouble with DirectCD.

5

No Roxio, I’ve got Nero.

6

Obviously not the hottest thread on the board but problem appears to be solved and it was the IDE drivers for the nVidia nForce2 chipset.

Downloaded the 3/31/04 IDE drivers (v4.15) from www.nvidia.com and left the rest of the chipset drivers alone, PC no longer reboots when I throw in a blank disc.

Woohoo, I owe me a beer!