This is probably really a hardware question except that SUSE 10.0 seems to have exposed a problem that either didn't exist under 9.x or at least didn't happen. Anyway...

In the process of ripping some CD's, the system froze solid. No response to CTL-ALT-BSP or CTL-ALT-DEL, let alone clicks and type-ins. The only way to unfreeze the system was to reset and reboot. Not Good. It turns out that disabling all DMA on the DVD/CD drive stopped the freezes. For audio playback and, I guess, package changes, etc. from a DVD, this is OK. But for using xine to watch a movie? Not so good.

The drive is a generic drive from who knows where. I'm looking for recommendations on drives that won't freeze 10.0 with DMA enabled.

I got this with my previous system, but I was able to check that it happened in Windows as well. Turned out it was hardware - nothing to do with Linux or Windows.

Do you have Windows on the machine? A 100% reliable way (IMO) to check if it is your hardware is to start up Windows and see if it will reliably play a DVD. If it does, the conclusion is obvious. If it doesn't, your hardware is -probably- bad.

Nope - no Windows on this box; the only Windows boxes here are a laptops. I did swap the orginal DVD burner for a simple DVD player and it changed one problem I've been having (the tray seemed to open and close by its own rules - v. odd, v. frustrating). But, even with a another (non-burner) drive, enabling DMA still brings the system to its knees. Most often it happens when ripping CD's (KAudioCreator) in ogg format, but also when the system's effectively idle and only running a screen saver display (xscreensaver - GLxxxx modules seem to be the worst for that).

Hmm - I think its hardware. It is manifestly rare (IMO) that things in Linux fail intermittently, or "sometimes" go bad. It either works or it doesn't. Best guess is you've got something flakey on the motherboard, especially the fact that you get random door openings and closings on the DVD drive is a -very- bad sign.

The drive (HP DVD Writer 640i) is somewhat suspect and that may account for the tray not acting as one might expect (that is, unexpected openings). It's currently in DMA/Ultra33 mode (as it had been prior to installing 10.0) and... so far, so good... for now. The non-name DVD drive (DVD & CD read only) clearly won't tolerate DMA in any form under 10.0 although it worked predictably under 9.3 (before I yanked it, last year, for the 640).

Sigh... I only wish that were so with 10.0. I don't think SUSE Linux 10.0 mis-behavior is totally random but it is clearly so boogered that the faults interact to the point where predicting failures is less successful than doing long term weather forecasting.

Please keep in mind this is a system that's been running basically as configured presently (save for the dratted optical drive and sound card and those changes were triggered by 10.0 mis-behavior) since SuSE 8.x. It's only with the introduction of 10.0 that things went in the dumper. So... hardware doesn't change, software changes, system goes in the dumper... don't think this is a hardware failure save for 10.0's poor reaction to hardware.