Mystery Manor Adventure Forum

I want to play Gray Matter and I am debating whether to get an external DVD drive that plugs in or should I buy a new DVD drive and put it in my 5-year-old computer? right now the external one sounds better, but I have no knowledge of those and don't even know if they will play the games. Any ideas?

You can do it either way. Of course, an external drive will not require you to open up the computer and install one. But it will also be more expensive.

This one is not a bad price and does get pretty good user reviews. Rosewill External Optical Drive

This page has all of Newegg's offerings. Don't look at the eSata interface - your computer is too old for them. You want the 2.0 USB interface.

External Optical Drives

Thanks. I think I will get that. would it make a difference that I changed my hard drive and put in a Sata 300?

Sorry, had to grab a phone call from my son. Here are the IDE interface optical drives at Newegg.

Internal IDE Optical Drives

I would suggest you do some shopping to see what you want.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with a Sata 300 hard drive? Are you saying you already replaced it? That would have no effect on whether the optical drive can read your disks or not.

SATA Hard Drives were the standard long before SATA optical drives. In a 5 year old computer you would most likely have a SATA HDD and IDE optical drive.....if that's what you're asking.

It would help to post the brand and model number of your computer to look up the specs to be sure of what interface you need. Would I be correct in assuming that you and Draclvr have already been down that road, since she seems to know what you need.

EDIT: Draclvr, you've got me hooked on this damned Firefox browser. I haven't used my beloved IE 8.0 since I installed this thing...and it's all your fault.

Shame on me! I'm sure you've cussed me out several times already... I love my Firefox!

She has a Dell XPS 200. Some firmware updates were recommended at GB, but they all date from 2006, so I'm doubting they will help. The current optical drive is a slim model and I'm not sure if the case has a slot for a full-sized drive. Since she's not confident of her computer hardware skills, maybe the external drive is a better option. I assume the USB 2.0 interface is fast enough to play games on an external drive.

Seriously, she needs to buck up and go for the internal drive. It's not difficult at all. Here are detailed instructions from her service manual...
Click this link--> http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... #wp1075764

Read those instructions and see how a monkey could do it

I found an IDE DVD Burner......
Click this link--> http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Samsung-T ... B001B7XYZO

Actually I gave you a big ole wet slobbery kiss on the cheek. I like this thing. I like the feature for putting some of my most frequently visited sites on the toolbar (v5.0)

See Robert!! Most visited is cool and you still have bookmarks for the rest of the stuff. Then there are the addons. I leave mine pretty basic so when I do have to use IE I feel messy.

Yeah, I haven't checked out the add-ons yet. Are you running v5.0, Judy? It seems like it's faster than IE8, but then again, my bandwidth just doubled from 6.0Mbps to 12.0Mbps with my broadband internet service from AT&T. I just switched from DTV to U-Verse (phone, hi-speed internet and TV).

Yes I have the 5.0, I always update it and never let any of those oddball toolbars install, I hate those things. The kids have done it cause they don't uncheck the box, then I have to go back and clean house. Speaking of speed, this is what I am getting now, I am happy and am sure that you are happy with double speeds.

Then just for the heck of it I opened IE8 and reran the test, now maybe this isn't fair cause I still had FF open but got this
It started off super fast, then started to bog down, anyway I have not had any more of those loading problems with videos.

Thank you so much for the suggestions. I ordered the Rosewill DVD drive from Newegg and got it today. I held my breath while Gray matter was loading and everything went without a hitch and I am playing the game right now! Finally. Thanks everyone.

Terrific news!!

Holy cow! That was fast and what great news that you are finally able to play your game. I hope this solves the issues with the other games too. I love happy endings! Newegg is the best.