I saw an earlier post from the Moderator about cleaning and lubricating cd-rw drives, how do you clean and lubricate them and what do you use as a lubricant? Also, are these drives supposed to run hot and upon ejecting a cd/dvd are the disks supposed to be hot? My drive seems to read some dvd's but not others and a few that it used to read it no longer reads. I wonder if I'm due to replace it.

Support Information:
Device Type: CD / DVD
Manufacturer: Generic CD/RW
Model: _NEC DVD_RW ND-3550A
Interface: IDE
Operating System: Windows XP Home
Age of Device: Not specified
FCCID:

Type of drive: dvd-r/cd-rw (dvd burner, dvd reader, & cd burner combo)
Location: internal
What recording software are you using?: Nero/version (Other: 6.6.1.15a)

Find it on DriverGuide (http://members.driverguide.com/index.php?action=srch&sm=b&aax=&qa6=0&qa5=3&qa7=1500&dp=3&qm0=_NEC+DVD_RW+ND-3550A&jmd=and&fzz=d) | Find it with Google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Generic+CD%2FRW+CD+%2F+DVD+Generic+CD%2FRW+_NEC+ DVD_RW+ND-3550A+Windows+XP+Home+)

If you are not seasoned at doing cleaning and lubricating, don't try it until you know how. Putting lub in the wrong place or too much will render your drive useless. I suggest you find someone who knows how and watch him do at least a couple of different brands of drives before attempting the task by yourself untrained.

I doubt cleaning and lubricating will cure the HOT problem. Your description of the problem appears to be either a part overheating or bad air circulation. A disk should be warm when it comes out of the drive but not hot. Are the fans working ok inside the power supply and possibly other fans at different places inside the pc? Check them to insure they turn freely when the unit is powered on and also make sure they are running at full rpm. Bad bearings can make the fans turn slowly or not at all. Dust and lint inside the power supply can cause bad air circulation so you may need to clean the power supply rather than the drive. The following items are needed to clean the power supply:

1: a compressed air source (to blow the dust and lint out)
2: Alcohol or some similar cleaning liquid.
3: about 10-15 q-tips

I personally use 2 & 3 to clean the blades of the fans.

Also don't forget to check the cpu for a heatsink and fan. It (the fan) may be froze or turning slowly from a bad bearing. Some pc's only have a large heatsink and no fan. Proper air flow is very important in a pc so check those first.