CD-R works sometimes, not others

I have installed a new 52X CD drive into an older computer and have been having trouble getting it to read CDs consistently. Sometimes it works great, while other times it hangs and spins without being able to read the SAME CD. It also has a lot of grief with audio CDs. I have un-checked the DMA box in the properties but am at a loss otherwise. I seen similar problems with other (24X) in the reverse fashion, where a drive will read audio perfectly but chokes on a data CD.