I have a dell latitude d610. The cdrw/dvd will not read discs. I do not receive any errors, you can just hear it speed up and slow down and then nothing. What can I try to fix it?

When such things happen it usually is as a result of the lens being weak. Weak lens are usually as a result of old age or improper use of the disk drive. First try running a lens cleaner on the device to clean the disk lens. if this does not work then it means the lens is bad and would need to be replaced.This can be carried out by any laptop repair technician.
Hope this solution has been helpful?

You can check, and clean if needed the optical sensor in the DVD drive. It's visable when the drive is open. Beyond that, all you can do is replace the drive.
R