cdrom drive spins down too quickly


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Thread: cdrom drive spins down too quickly

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Posts
    68

    cdrom drive spins down too quickly

    This is somewhat gaming related but it's dealing with hardware so I posted here. My cdrom spins down much too quickly (less than 10 seconds). So when I play a game (for example using epxse emulator) each time it needs to access the cd the game hicups as the drive spins back up again. With some games this gets really annoying. And I've tried with a cd image and the skipping is gone so it's definately a spin down issue and not sound card related or something.

    So is there any way/utilty to keep the cdrom active while playing a game?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    50
    Does it do it with anyother games or just a certain one(s)?
    you laugh at me because i'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Posts
    68
    All games but some games are more annoying than others.

    For example if a game has music on the cd it wont happen because the drive is constantly in use.

    But on the other hand right now I'm playing the metal gear solid vr missions in epsxe and most of the stages can be completed fairly quickly. But at the end of each one when it says for ex. "impressive snake" i get "immm --- ppppreesvie snnnakke" with the music stuttering as well until the cd speeds back up. I mention the stages can be cleared quickly because ever time I clear a stage I'm dealing with slowdowns,stuttering which gets really annoying.

    And I know it's not a sound issue cause if I make an image of the game and play from that there is no stuttering at all.

    This problem happens on the windows side as well but I know there are some utils out there that keep the drive active and I was looking for the same on the linux side.

    Maybe even some script that I could just loop and run in the background prior to launching the game that would just keep accessing the drives directory or something.

    There must be some workaround but I'm no good with that kind of thing.
    Last edited by McQuaid; 01-08-2005 at 02:15 AM.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    539
    This is what I thought of. Might not be the best way to do it, but it works for me.

    Code:
    #!/bin/bash
    
    # Variables
    DRIVE="/dev/cdroms/cdrom0"
    WAITSEC=5					
    BLOCKSIZE=512				
    COUNT=100
    #
    
    echo 'running; ^C to exit'
    while :
    do
    		dd if=$DRIVE of=/dev/null bs=$BLOCKSIZE count=$COUNT 2>/dev/null
    		sleep $WAITSEC
    done
    You'll probably have to change the DRIVE variable, and maybe the WAITSEC variable.
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