Greetings TCLUGers who don't mind reading about
  Win* problems,

I imagine I would also have a problem under Linux, 
but I am really writing this because I am really 
frustrated with a problem I am having installling
a CD-RW drive in my parent's computer. I suspect
the computer as the problem, and not the drives, 
but I wanted to know if anyone has seen anything
like this before, and possibly suggest a solution.

The computer:
----------------------
EPOX MVP3xxx mainboard (VIA chipset)
K6-2 300MHz processor
384MB PC100 SDRAM
Fujisu 6GB HDD (primary master)
Toshiba 24x CDROM (secondary master)

The CD-RW drives I've tried:
---------------------------------------------
Philips 8x4x32 (cheapo best buy)
Teac 8x8x32 (gns)

I have tried both drives as secondary slaves
and the Teac drive as a primary slave. I will
try the Teac drive as a secondary master (all
by itself), but I don't have much hope for that 
to work any better.

The problem (for both drives):
---------------------------------------------
The drive is recognized by the BIOS, and 
Win98 installs a driver for it. Win98 seems
to think the drive is a CD-RW (the "properties"
suggest it anyway), but the "Easy CD Creator"
software has other ideas (thinks it can write, but
only at "1x").

When a blank CDR is put into the CD-RW drive, 
the computer gets really busy. It is reading the
CD-RW and reading the HDD and is slow about
updating at least the CD writing software window,
and sometimes the whole screen, but the mouse
seems unaffected. When the blank CDR is
ejected the activity dies down slowly and the 
system returns to "normal". Overall, system
performance is negatively affected while the 
drive is installed, but not by an excessive amount. 

I installed the Philips drive and assumed the 
problem was with it when it didn't work. Now
that the Teac drive is exhibiting the exact same
behavior I suspect the computer, which seems
wierd to me because the computer is pretty 
normal when the CD-RW is not installed. :-(
I plan to install the Philips drive in another 
computer to test this theory tonight. 

Any hints? Am I missing the obvious?

Thank you for reading,

Troy