Jim Martin
Kendallville,#2Consumer Comment
Sat, December 10, 2011
First off, this is a very common misconception about "laptops". They are not actually meant to hold them on you lap. Doing this covers the small air vents on the side and bottom of the unit.
Second, on to the battery issue. The question is what exactly where you using the laptop for? I know they advertise it as "up to 3 hrs", but this is actually affected by your power management settings and what you are doing while the computer is on and unplugged from the wall outlet.
Gaming does use up your battery a lot faster then just say checking your email.
Third, the dvd player. Does it still open and just not read discs or is there no power to it at all. If it does open it may be just the driver. Mine did the same thing. Try backing up your data and do a factory reset. I had to use the restore discs I made when I first got my because my restore partition was damaged but that is another issue entirely.
If the drive does not open at all, it may just be a loose connection inside the computer itself. To fix that you would have to open the unit and check all of the connections. One of the wires may have popped out of the connector or come unsoldered. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself, you may have a friend that does or you can take it to a shop, though they will probably charge you more than it is worth.
I hope this helps you understand what may have happened.