Dreamcast stops spinning disc without go to menu screen

[Magnus Hell]

Well people, i already posted this in another forum and i think i should post here too, i don't know if this is a normal thing of the console because i never noticed before, i'm playing on my DC skies of arcadia and when i stay for too long in a certain area ( like a city ) the DC makes a noise like when the laser is running to read the disc and then the disc stops spinning, but the game still plays well, i can talk with people, walk around...and when i enter a area where the game loads ( like a door for example ) the game freezes for a second and the dreamcast makes a noise of the laser running again and starts reading the disc again...this is normal?
Because this kind os issues i see the other users talking in some forums, when the DC stops spinning the console go to the menu screen...but here he just stop and come back when the game load ( only with a little freeze when the console begins to read the disc again ), this is a problem? or it's a normal feature of the console? I thankfull for the ones who try to help and answer my question.

[Captain Dreamcast]

That's normal.

The disc stops spinning after a while to put less strain on the reader, I think. It's like a screensaver, but just for the reader unit... A "readersaver"!
If the disc doesn't start loading again and goes to the BIOS, then it's a problem.

[Magnus Hell]

That's normal.

The disc stops spinning after a while to put less strain on the reader, I think. It's like a screensaver, but just for the reader unit... A "readersaver"!
If the disc doesn't start loading again and goes to the BIOS, then it's a problem.

So yours do this too Captain?

( If the DC of someone else do this too i will be thankfull if u upload one vid of this happening, so i can compare and see if it's the same thing than here )

[Dingo]

No vid is necessary for comparison.

I can assure you that what you described is completely normal for a properly functioning DC.

If no data is requested from the GD-Rom for a certain amount of time (ie you stay in one area of SOA for a while) the spindle stops (you will hear it wind down) then the laser moves to, and then parks itself, in the innermost position (of course you will also hear that).

When the DC needs to get data off the GD again (like when you move to a new area) it'll spin back up and seek to the place it needs to read. That's were the delay between you moving to the next area, and the next area loading comes in: Spin up time + seek time. That can actaully take a couple seconds to happen. Thus, the screen freezes for a moment while the DC waits for the new data to even begin to be read in.

If it didn't have this feature one could let a DC on all day long and the spindle motor would never stop. That would be very bad for the longevity of an already very flaky drive mechanism.

Actually, this isn't even limited to DC. Every CD/DVD-Rom drive I've ever come in contact with works this way.

[Magnus Hell]

Hey Dingo, thanks a lot man, everyone helped me but you was the one to explain better!