DVD drive auto power off on T410

[oceanwave]

Bought new T410 a week ago. While trying to make recovery disc noticed my DVD drive is always powered off, even when machine is plugged in. To turn power on either you push side button on drive to open the case and it will turn on after almost a minute or can turn power on by right click on mouse. Is this a power saving default setting never heard of it before. Problem is if you are not able to put the disc in and able to play it within a minute it will turn itself off again and won't turn on again until I close all the programs and retry. While trying to change DVD during making of recovery disc it turned itself off if I was not able to pop the next DVD in and play it within a minute time. Very frustrating. Spend 7 DVD's  to complete recovery program as every time it turns off and I have to restart again. Checked power saving setting- Battery stretch is disabled so that`s not the issue. First of all Is this a normal feature with Lenovo. This is my first thinkpad. Why doesn`t it gives me a warning prior to turning itself off. Is there a option where I can increase the time line for it to stay active. Like the machine overall except this annoying feature. Called the technical support they suggested to replace the DVD drive and have shipped a new DVD drive.  Will try once I receive it but not sure if DVD drive is the problem. Any suggestions.

[Mutnat]

Funny timing that I read this now, since I JUST finished reading someone describing how to disable the auto-off feature on the optical disc!  Click here for the directions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6087314&postcount=7

[oceanwave]

Many Thanks Mutnat. I was able to disable the auto power off feature on optical drive. What a relief. I went to PM but was mainly focused on battery stretch option and probably missed the advanced view. I am totally surprised by the limited knowledge of technical support people in Lenovo. I was convinced that optical drive is OK its something to do with power settings and hence called tech.support. I called them today again to find  other person to explaine him my situation, as I was not convinced with the opinion of previous guy and I was told to  replace the drive. Now it should be arriving by next week. I will send it back. Also any idea how to capture the image with integrated camera. I can turn it on by pressing fn +F6 key but can`t take pic. Tech says I need to install third party software. Your help is appreciated.

[ziggyboy]

That's funny, I got my T410 yesterday morning and last night was creating recovery disks. The exact SAME THING happened to me. THe 2nd time around I literally had my laptop next to me while I was watching TV, glancing every 30 seconds so the **bleep** thing won't turn off.

I think this is definitely a bug...either with the recovery program or the software that switches it on. It's supposed to just switch on when it's needed, so why does it not know the recovery program is trying to access it?

[Mutnat]

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oceanwave wrote:

Also any idea how to capture the image with integrated camera. I can turn it on by pressing fn +F6 key but can`t take pic. Tech says I need to install third party software. Your help is appreciated.

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Hmmm, unfortunately I'm not too sure about this.  You're right, the Fn+F6 interface definitely doesn't give a way to take a photo.  But I don't know what software to tell you to download in order to do so.  You can definitely do video conferencing with Skype and MSN messenger, but I'm not sure about taking still pics.

[zerofire0]

You can use windows for the pictures as the camera is accessible from My Computer with all the capture functionality enabled.

[jb1st]

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Mutnat wrote:

Funny timing that I read this now, since I JUST finished reading someone describing how to disable the auto-off feature on the optical disc!  Click here for the directions: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=6087314&postcount=7

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Very frustrating. Did they not even try to create backup CDs once? The exact same problem is happening for me. This link is not valid for my model (T410 with Win 7 Professional 64-bit). It says to set "Automatic Optical Drive Power Off to Disabled" but I have no option named "Automatic Optical Drive Power Off" in the power settings.

I agree the system is great, but now I hope this is not a sign of other problems to come with Lenovo's tech support and software.

Anyone figure this out?

[jb1st]

OK very weird, but the optical drive power option now appears for me.. I swear it wasn't there before, but now after rebooting it is there.

[habhoobie]

I can't find the optical drive on and off option in my power manager

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

go into your Thinkvantage Power Manager under the different power plan there should be optical drive power saving features enabling/disabling box.