[SGVLUG] off topic - hardware question

[jmd]

my son's computer has gone thru 3 DVD RW drives in 6 months. and i am  
at a loss as to the cause. googling shows that there is clearly a  
problem with cd and dvds rotating too fast and at time exploding  
inside the drive. (this has happened once on my sons computer):

http://www.paintbug.com/cdexplode/

while only one cd has exploded, 2 others (dvds) have hit incredible  
speeds and then the drive is non-functioning. one dvdrw will still  
burn cds but will not read or write dvds. all of these drives will  
burn or read a few dvds then fail.

my question is what causes the cdrom/dvdrom drive to reach these  
speeds. there must be something that causes this to happen so  
frequently.

the particulars:

amd 3000+, 512MB memory, 80GB SATA 8MB cache, MS Win XP. the DVD RW  
drives were (2) AOPEN ( i forget the read write speeds and i don't  
have the boxes but they were fastest available in the last 6 months).  
the sony is a DVD +/- R dual layer.

any ideas or links to pursue would be appreciated. the sony was over  
$100 and is in the trash after 2 weeks. what i am finding on google  
is mostly about older cds in todays faster drives.

jeff