Drive seeks or spins but fails to read reliably.
11 repair logs
+18 photosSuccessful repairNEC — PC Engine CD-ROM2
This NEC PC Engine CD-ROM² threw everything at me: 3D printed gears, a dead laser, a Discman sacrifice and a spindle height mystery, before a full recap finally brought it home. Worth every frustrating hour of it.
+11 photosSuccessful repairMicrosoft — Xbox 360
The laser on a friend's Microsoft Xbox 360 needed replacing: the old pickup refused to read discs 99% of the time, so a new laser and a drive service got it reading again.
+5 photosPartial fixNintendo — GameCube
Two spare Nintendo GameCube optical drives (DOL-001) recapped. One came back to life, one didn't. The dead one reads 30 ohms on the motor where the working one is OL, which likely points to a dead motor.
+13 photosNintendo — GameCube
A bit of an identity crisis on this Nintendo GameCube pearl white: DOL-001 board in a DOL-101 shell, transplanted there many moons ago. Optical drive recapped as part of the GameCube maintenance day.
+17 photosNintendo — GameCube
This silver Nintendo GameCube (DOL-001) was recapped twice. First its optical drive PCB, to cure a disc read fault (on these consoles it is usually the caps, not the laser). Later, a full mainboard recap, which kicked off the campaign to recap the mainboards across the whole GameCube fleet. Razor-sharp Tetris blocks to celebrate.
+2 photosSuccessful repairSony — PlayStation 3
Backwards-compatible Sony PlayStation 3 CECHB00 that would accept and eject discs but not read them. The tray mechanism needed lubing and once done, it read PS1, PS2 and PS3 without complaint.
+11 photosSuccessful repairNEC — PC Engine Super CD-ROM2
This NEC PC Engine Super CD-ROM² gave me a scare mid-recap when it lost the picture entirely. Turned out to be a resistor knocked off during SMD cap removal; found it on the paper towel and put it back. Also gained a new transport gear and an RGB amp.
+18 photosSuccessful repairNintendo — GameCube
PAL Nintendo GameCube DOL-101 in black, with a PicoBoot install using a WiiKey as the storage interface. The mainboard turned out to have almost entirely polymer caps, making the recap a very quick affair.
+27 photosSuccessful repairNintendo — GameCube
My personal Nintendo GameCube (DOL-001) spice orange. Started life with a PicoBoot and later upgraded to a FlippyDrive. The optical drive also got fresh caps as part of a GameCube maintenance day.
+7 photosNintendo — GameCube
Two Nintendo GameCubes (black and spice orange) restored for friends: Console 5 mainboard cap kit, optical drive and PSU recap, XenoGC chip and new coin cell battery holders. Wind Waker was played immediately.
NEC — PC Engine Duo
A second Duo with the same grime and leakage, but this one read discs poorly as well. Tuning the pots got original discs reading reliably yet left the disc audibly rubbing, so a new HOP-M3 optical pickup went in and the pots went back to their marked factory positions. A charred lid switch was replaced and the console was RGB modded.
