DVD drive keeps powering up

[GeoffTF]

I am running Mint 21.1 Cinnamon on a desktop PC (i5-4460 with 8 GB RAM, SSD, hard drive and DVD drive). Everything was working very well until recently. My internal DVD drive now keeps powering up and immediately powering down again, which is very irritating. There is no DVD in the drive. It happens about once an hour on average, but can happen more than once in quick succession. It happens when I am running only the Chromium browser. Are others experiencing the same problem?

[Cosmo.]

This seems to be the day for mysteries, although the 1st of April is only tomorrow.

Do you say, that the problem does not appear, as long as Chromium is not launched?

[GeoffTF]

I almost always have Chromium launched. I could try using Firefox instead. (I am using Chromium because Firefox fails to remember where I last opened it.)

[Cosmo.]

Firefox fails to remember where I last opened it

This happens only, if you leave FF open when you shut down or log off. A bad - but often done - habit.

[GeoffTF]

Firefox fails to remember where I last opened it

This happens only, if you leave FF open when you shut down or log off. A bad - but often done - habit.

I always close Firefox before I shut down. When I reboot and launch Firefox it always opens a little to the right of the left edge of the screen. I have to manually move it to the left side. If I have opened a file manager window on the left of the screen and then launch Firefox, it sees an empty space on the right of the screen and opens there, which is also annoying. I like the web browser on the left of the screen and LibreOffice (when I am using it) on the right, so that I can copy from one to the other.

[Cosmo.]

Open Users & Groups and create a new account for testing. Reboot and log into the new account. Boot Firefox, close it, reopen it. How does it behave?

[rickNS]

You did not say how old the machine is ?
I doubt very much that the DVD drive has anything to do with any browser you happen to be using, that is just coincidence. It is most likely the DVD drive is older, and probably dirty (dust collection).

I have had pretty much the same issue on a laptop 10-12 years of age, the DVD drive would pop open at some random interval, and sometimes you'd hear it make sounds. I believe it was rene suggested to take it out, and give it a good flooding with alcohol to clean it, which helped a lot. And it can't hurt, just give it time to dry completely.

While testing a movie the other day, the DVD would play in one machine, but not in another, bottom line is they DVD drives) are made cheaply, and do not last forever either.

[GeoffTF]

I too doubt whether the browser I am running has anything to do with the problem. The PC is nearly eight years old. The DVD drive has received very little use, but could have collected dust (along with the rest of the PC). A hardware problem is a likely explanation. If it were a software problem, I would expect it to be in the operating system and other people to have the same problem. I have just checked that I can read a DVD, and had no problems.

When the problem occurs the DVD speeds up and then slows down again. The bay does not open. It is the same as (rightly) occurs on boot.

[GeoffTF]

I have tried using Firefox. Quiet for a while and then the DVD powered up and down three times within a minute.

[GeoffTF]

I believe it is an electro-mechanical problem with the DVD drive. I expect that replacing it will fix the problem.