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Mike Richter, were you born with
"Scam Artist" emblazoned on your face?
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wrote:

This is a DVD-ROM I've been using for the better part of 2 years. The last
6 months, it has been going downhill. It has difficulty recognizing a CD.
Frequently it will fail to see the CD until it times out. When that
happens, of course, I can't play the CD; I have to use my burner. Also,
it's taking longer and longer to rip a CD--when it does recognize it. It
used to rip at 40x. Now I'm lucky to get it to rip at 15x, and it has much
more trouble with minor glitches.

Is it time for a funeral, or do these symptoms suggest an easy fix?

If you have a canned compressed air handy, give it a squirt. If that
doesn't fix, you need to open it up and... But don't think you want to
go thru all that inasmuch as that doesn't guarantee a fix.