TG CD drive with loading Noise/static Solved

[Keith Courage]

This is the 2nd drive in a year where I have encountered this problem and I wanted to post what was wrong in case others ever have this issue. In both cases the CD drive would work fine but when loading in between levels you could hear very loud static/CD information reading noise coming out of the TVs speakers. Once loaded all game music sounded just fine. Only when loading would the problem arise. With both CD drives the culprit was a resister on the motherboard and for both drives it was the exact same resister. I have no clue why this is but it must be starting to become somewhat common since I have now found this twice. Maybe since it is so close to the screw hole that some part of the drive gets pushed onto it during shipment? On both drives the 103 resister circled in Red below was fried. Motherboard section R168. When I found the bad resister I could clearly see a big line through it almost like a huge scratch. In fact on once when I removed the resister it fell apart in two halves. Replace the resister and the problem is solved. I'm sure other things can cause this issue but for me both times this was the problem.

[Marll]

Very interesting!

My TGCD has had that loading noise issue since day 1 back in like 1990. I always thought that's just the way that it is until last year a friend of mine bought a TGCD from Craigslist and it was completely silent. We both thought it was weird as the only TGCD we'd heard up until then was mine.

How difficult is the fix? Especially with a better sound system this is more noticeable and actually kind of annoying.

[Necromancer]

Nice!  Thanks for sharing the fix to what will hopefully not become a common problem.

[ApolloBoy]

IIRC, 103 actually means 10K so you can replace it with a 10K ohm resistor. You could replace it with a surface mount one like the original but I think a 1/8 W leaded resistor would be easier.

[Keith Courage]

Thanks for updating what kind of resister it actually is cause I didn't know. I just took a surface mount 103 from a spare sony discman I had lying around.

[thesteve]

the resistor is a 10k film on ceramic.
even fried they dont fall apart.
yours were cracked (likely from impact of some sort)

[SignOfZeta]

Interesting. Every PCE I've used made some sort of noise on the audio lines when the laser was moving. I think I remember one being louder than the other, but I've never encountered one that was problematically bad.

[Keith Courage]

The static noise put out by this was as loud as playing the game information track like an audio disc. So really dam loud. Almost like hearing a dial up modem.

[BlueBMW]

The static noise put out by this was as loud as playing the game information track like an audio disc. So really dam loud. Almost like hearing a dial up modem.

I kind of miss that sound... good ol dial up

[roflmao]

I kind of miss that sound... good ol dial up

Me too.   Those were the days.  That's probably one of the reasons I like Information Society so much.  They had a modem connection sound on one of their tracks on "Hack" and hid a secret text message at the end of their " Peace & Love Inc." Album that could only be accessed via modem. 

...And they had a track on the Turbo CD+G disc.

P.S. - I was a sysop of a BBS back in the early 90's.

[Marll]

Sorry to revive this thread, but would any ol' 10k ohm resistor work in this position?

[Drakon]

I've only had one cd unit and it never had this issue.  But glad to know how to fix it if this ever happens!

[Keith Courage]

Any 10k resister should work just fine. It doesn't have to be a small surface mount. You would just have to bend a regular sized one down against the board so it isn't sticking up in the air. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to put the CD unit back together.

Also, how loud is your loading noise? Mine was crazy loud just like the sound of a dial up modem. It is perfectly normal to hear a little bit of loading noise just not modem static.