CD tray opens/closes randomly

Question

CD tray opens/closes randomly

Hello,
I can't open my cd tray with the eject key or through terminal. It's been loony for a while.
Every once and a while, it *opens by itself then closes immediately*. Opens, then closes again.
*This can go on for up to 5-6 hrs.* and eventually it will stop. But…randomly it will start doing it again regardless of what i'm doing on my computer at the time. Sometimes it will read a CD, if i manage to be the quicker hand and shove a CD in the tray before it automatically closes by itself again. Sometimes it won't read the CD.
I remember seeing a similar post about a year ago where someone responded saying that it could be a *bad RAM* chip. I have tried booting from the original Mac OSX CD and running the hardware test. One of the RAM chips did appear to be defective.

My question is this:
*Could this really be the case?*
*By replacing the RAM would I most likely solve the problem?*

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

G4 867MHz dual, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Apr 17, 2008 9:01 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

428,105 points

Apr 17, 2008 10:35 AM in response to John Geraghty

The other thing to check is the clearance between the drive and the case. Drives usually have an eject button on the front and if it is close to the case vibration could be causing the button to be pressed, resulting in erratic opening and closing.

Reply

Answer 2

Apr 17, 2008 4:23 PM in response to John Geraghty

If you have a stuck CD/DVD, first try a Restart while holding down the mouse button.

These links discuss stuck CD/DVDs, but there may be some useful info.:

Ejecting media in Mac OS X: Removing 'stuck' CDs/DVDs http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20041011075232575

PowerPC-based Macintosh: How to eject a disc when other options don't work
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106752

Here's something else to do.

Enable *Eject Menu* by opening the folder System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras and double-clicking the file "Eject.menu". An eject icon will appear in the menubar that can be used to close and open selected optical drive(s).

 Cheers, Tom 😉

Reply

Answer 3

Apr 18, 2008 4:14 AM in response to Texas Mac Man

Thanks for the advice!
I know about the mouse button on start-up (to eject) but didn't know about the "menu extras" method. I tried this and under the eject icon in the upper right of the menu bar it says "No Drives".
In fact, I've notice when opening toast it doesn't find the Phillips optical drive.
However, as I'm writing this, the drive tray is opening and closing. Opens, closes right away…waits a few seconds, then does it again. Sometimes it will stop for a half hour then psychotically it starts again!!! As the other user suggested, I will try checking the clearance between the drive and the frontal eject.
Thanks again for trying!!!!!
-Bryan

Reply

Answer 4

japamac

Level 7

24,400 points

Apr 18, 2008 5:35 AM in response to John Geraghty

Hi-

While your checking things, make sure the IDE cable is firmly/properly connected at both the back of the drive and at the motherboard (obviously it has power).The reason I suggest this, is that since the system can't see the drive (what does System Profiler say?), either the IDE cable is disconnected, or the drive has lost it's mind, and is only convulsing- otherwise known as dead.
BTW, what happens if you throw a disc in the tray when it's open?

Reply