Asus notebook - DVD ROM drive starts when I don't want it to

Resolved question

I recently bought an Asus N56V series notebook, running Windows 7 64bit. Something seems to be odd with my DVD ROM drive, which starts whenever:

1) I boot up the notebook, or;
2) I plug in an external USB device such as a memory stick, hard drive or iPod / iPhone (this happens regardless of which USB port I use), or;
3) I open or restore (or sometimes minimise) media programmes such as Windows Media Player or iTunes.

No messages appear on the screen and the DVD Rom drive stops after a couple of seconds. The external drives and programs seem to work ok, although I have had iTunes crash a few times on me lately. I don't know if it is connected in any way.

I wondered at first if this was a BIOS issue, but I have played around with the boot options and it hasn't made a difference.

I also considered that there might be a third party program which is causing this to happen, but through "msconfig.exe" I have disabled all but Microsoft services and it hasn't made a difference either.

The DVD Rom drive works fine by the way, when I need it to. But I want it to stop starting when I don't need it to. I can click it open when I am using the notebook which stops it starting during 2 and 3. But this isn't a very satisfactory solution.

Asus support have recommended I book the notebook in for a repair under warranty, but this is a bit of a nuclear option and will leave me without my notebook for quite a while. Does anybody here have a clue how I might be able to fix this myself?

Finally, I should add that the retailer I bought the notebook from (approved by Asus) upgraded the hard drive upgrade to a SSD for me. I hope this isn't the root of the problem. Do you think this will affect the warranty and Asus' willingness to service this if need be? I still have the original hard drive by the way, and I haven't re-formatted it.