Try inserting a CD and see how the light reacts. I expect it to either blink or switch to amber while it's recognizing the CD, then it will settle on green again once everything is good. Many drives do this.

wbahnassi wrote on 2024-09-05, 20:28:

Try inserting a CD and see how the light reacts. I expect it to either blink or switch to amber while it's recognizing the CD, then it will settle on green again once everything is good. Many drives do this.

The green light is still constant on even after inserting CD, and no spinning.
But still, only power is connected , no cable (since I don’t have the propritary interface yet), so this might be expected…

Well, if yours is broken, so is the (not-broken!) one in the YouTube video by the Phintage Collector (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKh0p3eBQnY).

AlaricD wrote on 2024-09-05, 21:12:

Well, if yours is broken, so is the (not-broken!) one in the YouTube video by the Phintage Collector (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKh0p3eBQnY).

Are you referring to the part at 6:44 were you can see the constant green light, before he ejects the tray?
Yes, that might actually answer my question!

This might be a Sony 33a CDROM drive. It has a proprietary connector , ribbon, and ISA controller card.
This was my first CDROM drive back in 1993.
It was used by PC manufactures in allot of computers from 1993.
This is when manufactures were first building multimedia computers and fitting them with a CDROM and sound card and 4mb of memory.
They used a 486dx-33 CPU.
And ISA motherboard.

One problem that turn up with these Sony CDROM drives was that they were plagued with cheap capacitors that burst and leaked onto the
PCB and destroyed the traces. This is why there are few of these Sony Proprietary drives still around.
I have about 5 of these and 3 don’t work.

But even if you get it working they are really slow and seek allot.
Thats what I remember from working with these drives.
You also need the proprietary Sony CDROM driver.

So to make an answer short I would NOT invest any money in this drive unless you want to.
But the performance is really slow.
I remember running Multimedia CD’s that came with this Sony Drive NEW and the CD’s ran really slow and the Drive would seek allot.

I would rather buy a 52x Sony CDROM drive with Standard 40-pin IDE connector.
It’s less expensive, Newer and Performs Great.

Thats what I put in my Retro computers.

These 2x, 4x, and 6x CDROM drives are just to old and Slow.
Capacitors don’t last forever.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-09-05, 23:54:

This might be a Sony 33a CDROM drive. It has a proprietary connector , ribbon, and ISA card. This was my first CDROM drive back […]
Show full quote

This might be a Sony 33a CDROM drive. It has a proprietary connector , ribbon, and ISA card.
This was my first CDROM drive back in 1993.
It was used by PC manufactures in allot of computers from 1993.
This is when manufactures were first building multimedia computers and fitting them with a CDROM and sound card and 4mb of memory.
They used a 486dx-33 CPU.
And ISA motherboard.

One problem that turn up with these Sony CDROM drives was that they were plagued with cheap capacitors that burst and leaked onto the
PCB and destroyed the traces. This is why there are few of these Sony Proprietary drives still around.
I have about 5 of these and 3 don’t work.

But even if you get it working they are really slow and seek allot.
Thats what I remember from working with these drives.
You also need the proprietary Sony CDROM driver.

So to make an answer short I would NOT invest any money in this drive unless you want to.
But the performance is really slow.
I remember running Multimedia CD’s that came with this Sony Drive NEW and the CD’s ran really slow and the Drive would seek allot.

I would rather buy a 52x Sony CDROM drive with Standard 40-pin IDE connector.
It’s less expensive, Newer and Performs Great.

Thats what I put in my Retro computers.

These 2x, 4x, and 6x CDROM drives are just to old and Slow.
Capacitors don’t last forever.

Thanks for that extensive answer and suggestion!
I got the drive for free, and if a cheap way of going forward will turn up, I might try it out. Otherwise, I’ll look at something else.

d00mo wrote on 2024-09-05, 20:10:

I have a Creative CD-ROM of model CDU33A-01 with the Sony Proprietary interface (i.e. not IDE) and thinking about trying to get it working.
But before I invest in any ISA 8-bit card or Sound Card with the interface, I just want to clear out something I just noticed.
When connecting the CD-ROM with just power cable, the green light is constant on. Is that expected behavior, or indicating that something is faulty in the drive?

On these early Sony drives, I think the green light stays on all the time and flashes orange when reading.

Regardless, pretty much all of them suffer from SMD electrolytic cap leakage. I would check the PCB for corrosion, even if it's working properly you will need to replace the caps at some point.

If you have the means to do it, please try to save the drive. They're becoming rare as lots of people trash them due to the cap leakage.

d00mo wrote on 2024-09-06, 03:49:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-09-05, 23:54:

This might be a Sony 33a CDROM drive. It has a proprietary connector , ribbon, and ISA card. This was my first CDROM drive back […]
Show full quote

This might be a Sony 33a CDROM drive. It has a proprietary connector , ribbon, and ISA card.
This was my first CDROM drive back in 1993.
It was used by PC manufactures in allot of computers from 1993.
This is when manufactures were first building multimedia computers and fitting them with a CDROM and sound card and 4mb of memory.
They used a 486dx-33 CPU.
And ISA motherboard.

One problem that turn up with these Sony CDROM drives was that they were plagued with cheap capacitors that burst and leaked onto the
PCB and destroyed the traces. This is why there are few of these Sony Proprietary drives still around.
I have about 5 of these and 3 don’t work.

But even if you get it working they are really slow and seek allot.
Thats what I remember from working with these drives.
You also need the proprietary Sony CDROM driver.

So to make an answer short I would NOT invest any money in this drive unless you want to.
But the performance is really slow.
I remember running Multimedia CD’s that came with this Sony Drive NEW and the CD’s ran really slow and the Drive would seek allot.

I would rather buy a 52x Sony CDROM drive with Standard 40-pin IDE connector.
It’s less expensive, Newer and Performs Great.

Thats what I put in my Retro computers.

These 2x, 4x, and 6x CDROM drives are just to old and Slow.
Capacitors don’t last forever.

Thanks for that extensive answer and suggestion!
I got the drive for free, and if a cheap way of going forward will turn up, I might try it out. Otherwise, I’ll look at something else.

Of the drives I have that did not work the LED lights still worked and the tray worked too.
But the drive would not read the disks.
Upon opening it up and inspecting. I found some capacitors had fallen off.
I inspected the Circuit board and saw where the capacitors had fallen off.
The capacitors leaked onto the circuit board and destroyed the solder welds and traces causing the capacitors to fall off.
I might be able to fix them by replacing the SMB capacitors with a different type with long legs so I can weld directly to the traces by passing the solder pads which were destroyed.

So I would open up the CDROM drive and inspect the circuit board.
It’s easy to open up.
Just open the tray first with a paper clip.

TheMobRules wrote on 2024-09-06, 04:23:

On these early Sony drives, I think the green light stays on all the time and flashes orange when reading. […]
Show full quote

d00mo wrote on 2024-09-05, 20:10:

I have a Creative CD-ROM of model CDU33A-01 with the Sony Proprietary interface (i.e. not IDE) and thinking about trying to get it working.
But before I invest in any ISA 8-bit card or Sound Card with the interface, I just want to clear out something I just noticed.
When connecting the CD-ROM with just power cable, the green light is constant on. Is that expected behavior, or indicating that something is faulty in the drive?

On these early Sony drives, I think the green light stays on all the time and flashes orange when reading.

Regardless, pretty much all of them suffer from SMD electrolytic cap leakage. I would check the PCB for corrosion, even if it's working properly you will need to replace the caps at some point.

If you have the means to do it, please try to save the drive. They're becoming rare as lots of people trash them due to the cap leakage.

Thanks for clarifying the green light - just the answer I was hoping for!

And also for the cap-issues. I will definitely check them, and will not get rid of the drive!

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-09-06, 05:20:

Of the drives I have that did not work the LED lights still worked and the tray worked too. But the drive would not read the dis […]
Show full quote

d00mo wrote on 2024-09-06, 03:49:

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-09-05, 23:54:

This might be a Sony 33a CDROM drive. It has a proprietary connector , ribbon, and ISA card. This was my first CDROM drive back […]
Show full quote

This might be a Sony 33a CDROM drive. It has a proprietary connector , ribbon, and ISA card.
This was my first CDROM drive back in 1993.
It was used by PC manufactures in allot of computers from 1993.
This is when manufactures were first building multimedia computers and fitting them with a CDROM and sound card and 4mb of memory.
They used a 486dx-33 CPU.
And ISA motherboard.

One problem that turn up with these Sony CDROM drives was that they were plagued with cheap capacitors that burst and leaked onto the
PCB and destroyed the traces. This is why there are few of these Sony Proprietary drives still around.
I have about 5 of these and 3 don’t work.

But even if you get it working they are really slow and seek allot.
Thats what I remember from working with these drives.
You also need the proprietary Sony CDROM driver.

So to make an answer short I would NOT invest any money in this drive unless you want to.
But the performance is really slow.
I remember running Multimedia CD’s that came with this Sony Drive NEW and the CD’s ran really slow and the Drive would seek allot.

I would rather buy a 52x Sony CDROM drive with Standard 40-pin IDE connector.
It’s less expensive, Newer and Performs Great.

Thats what I put in my Retro computers.

These 2x, 4x, and 6x CDROM drives are just to old and Slow.
Capacitors don’t last forever.

Thanks for that extensive answer and suggestion!
I got the drive for free, and if a cheap way of going forward will turn up, I might try it out. Otherwise, I’ll look at something else.

Of the drives I have that did not work the LED lights still worked and the tray worked too.
But the drive would not read the disks.
Upon opening it up and inspecting. I found some capacitors had fallen off.
I inspected the Circuit board and saw where the capacitors had fallen off.
The capacitors leaked onto the circuit board and destroyed the solder welds and traces causing the capacitors to fall off.
I might be able to fix them by replacing the SMB capacitors with a different type with long legs so I can weld directly to the traces by passing the solder pads which were destroyed.

So I would open up the CDROM drive and inspect the circuit board.
It’s easy to open up.
Just open the tray first with a paper clip.

Thanks again, I will look into what state the caps are!

Just wanna say that I love this forum!
People are extremely helpful - thanks !! 🙏

d00mo wrote on 2024-09-05, 21:46:

AlaricD wrote on 2024-09-05, 21:12:

Well, if yours is broken, so is the (not-broken!) one in the YouTube video by the Phintage Collector (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKh0p3eBQnY).

Are you referring to the part at 6:44 were you can see the constant green light, before he ejects the tray?
Yes, that might actually answer my question!

Yep. Looks like it's normal for that drive.

An little update on this..
I finally got hold on a controller card supporting the Sony 34-pin proprietary drive, and after messing around with the drivers circulating around, I finally got it up and running!
It works fine!! No bad capacitors. This fits very nicely into my retro build.

Lucky you.
Try playing some video CD movies
Or Multimedia CD videos like San Diego Zoo.
I remember this CD came with Sony CD Drive.

The CD ran really slow and would seek allot.
I had a 486dx-33 with 4mb of memory and a SVGA video card

I Passed on putting this Sony 2x CD drive in my NEW 486 because of these reasons.
Instead I put a 52x Sony 40-pin IDE drive in my computers.
I would not go any slower than a 8x CD Drive for a 486 computer.

My main purpose was to play the most assortment of DOS games on my computer.
So I put that priority over having period correct 1993 hardware.

My 486 computer has mostly 1993/94 hardware except for the CD ROM drive with is a Sony 8x IDE
And I am using a CF card instead of hard drive.
But my 486 is “Rock Solid Stable”
It never crashes and can play every DOS game I have tried so far.

I do have some of the Sony 2x CDROM drives in other 486 computers
And my IBM PS/1 computers came with Panasonic 2x CDROM drives too.
These Panasonic/Matshuista CDROM drive seem to be better built as I have NOT found one that does NOT work as of yet.

This Sony a33 CDROM originally came bundled with some CDROM disks including
San Diego Zoo and Encyclopedia. Maybe Carmen San Diego and World Atlas.