Evil ISOs destroying your hardware

[elnino]

That's usually what happens when playing isos and can be easily fixed by manually moving the laser back to the center.

I've opened the CD-Rom and manually put the laser in pretty much every possible position but all that changed was the frequency of the buzz.

[Kitsunexus]

That's usually what happens when playing isos and can be easily fixed by manually moving the laser back to the center.

I've opened the CD-Rom and manually put the laser in pretty much every possible position but all that changed was the frequency of the buzz.

This is what happened to my Dreamcasts, that I mainly played homebrew on. Sorry man.

[spenoza]

I understood that CD drive laser strength was constant. The laser unit doesn't put out more power to read CDRs, it just has to do a lot more reading and re-reading of the disc. The laser itself doesn't get any more wear, per se. It's probably something mechanical that moves the laser head into position that's screwed.

[Bonknuts]

 elnino: ISOs or rather CD-Rs didn't instantly kill your CD unit. Which addon unit do you have? I assuming it's the original japanese version since you mentioned "interface" unit. Mine just instantly died a couple of months back as well (no CD-R's). Tatsujin mentioned the gear thing. I'm gonna take a look at that.

 The only thing I've ever seen was when the Duo units start to go out and and it has a hard time reading a CD-R(can be a CD also), the laser module will get stuck or "parked" to the right. In that case you have to open the unit and manually rotate the spindle shaft until the module becomes unstuck.

 If the CD doesn't spin at all, then you have a totally different and unrelated problem (pertaining to CD-Rs). My original Duo unit stopped spinning CDs. The motor was fine because I could manually put Vcc to and watch it spin, so something else on the controller area when out.

[SignOfZeta]

If the CD doesn't spin at all, then you have a totally different and unrelated problem (pertaining to CD-Rs).

Just to clarify, if the laser is stuck to the right the CD will not spin at all *until* the laser comes back to the center. The CD spindle will only spin if it detects a CD from the inner most position.

If the laser is stuck, it doesn't have to be moved more than about 2mm. Once you do that the system can bring it self back to center, which is a normal part of the start-up process.

[Bonknuts]

If the CD doesn't spin at all, then you have a totally different and unrelated problem (pertaining to CD-Rs).

Just to clarify, if the laser is stuck to the right the CD will not spin at all *until* the laser comes back to the center. The CD spindle will only spin if it detects a CD from the inner most position.

If the laser is stuck, it doesn't have to be moved more than about 2mm. Once you do that the system can bring it self back to center, which is a normal part of the start-up process.

 I was referring to if he didn't have the "parked" module issue.

[Tatsujin]

as i did understand elnino(-kouhai) the right, he was using the cd-rom (which is indeed a jap. white one conected to the IFU30) for a long time now and there wasn't a problem like that while using original copies. then suddenly while using the 1st time a cd-r, the system crashes after just a couple of minutes to total loss.

this is either a very badly accident and also could happened so with an original copy, Ooor there is really a correlation to the cd-r which instantly gave the system the death blow, which anyway would happened soon or later (rather sooner i guess).

[Bonknuts]

Ooor there is really a correlation to the cd-r which instantly gave the system the death blow,

 Hey! Now you're just adding fuel to fear and dubious speculation 

[Turbo D]

I haven't had any problems with cd-rs that I made myself. I used one that a friend made me and it made the laser get stuck on one end. I just hand-banged it back to the center and everything was cool.

[elnino]

The CD-Rom in question is the original japanese version. The notorious yellow gear has some teeth missing but the system has been working so far, the missing teeth resulted only in additional loading time because the the connection between the yellow wheel and the one next to it hasn't been optimal obviously. Unfortunately, I can't tell if there are more missing teeth now then there were before this incident which leaves me with two options:

1) Instant death: The ISO screwed up my laser and would probably have caused an explosion of the system and maybe some other calamities if I hadn't shut off the power.

2) More missing teeth: The ISO made the CD-Rom work a lot more harder reading the disk, thus some more teeth flew off the gear which is now the reason nothing boots up at all.

Either way I'm thinking about what I should do with the next console. On one hand, I'd like to continue playing burned disks to protect the expensive original disks, as I mentioned before, but also to play some stuff I'm currently developing on the real PC-Engine. On the other hand, I do not want my console to get f*cked up again by those ISO shit.

[Kitsunexus]

You know the only way to test this is to find two mint never-played Duos, open them up and make sure everything is in proper condition, then only play original CD games on one and only ISOs on the other, see which lasts longer.

I don't think it's even possible to find a mint never-played Duo though.



Also, I know jack shit about old consoles and CD-R media (and in the words of our beloved Validus, Jack left town) but it really isn't hard to picture a group of collectors sitting in a bar trying to come up with a story to make people avoid CD-Rs like a naked Rosie O'Donnell, thus increasing the prices of the rare original CD games dramatically. It actually sounds like something I'd do if I was a collector. 

[Tatsujin]

The Last DUO Standing

[elnino]

I'd like to point out that the ISOs smacked down a CD-Rom unit and not a Duo console. If my second option (more missing teeth) turned out to be the truth, the Duo would be the better choice for playing ISOs because it hasn't such a shitty gear and could probably handle the increased amount of work much better. There may be other issues however, I haven't played any burned disks on my Duo since its cd-rom laser has been resting in peace for quite a while now.

[SignOfZeta]

two options:

1) Instant death: The ISO screwed up my laser and would probably have caused an explosion of the system and maybe some other calamities if I hadn't shut off the power.

2) More missing teeth: The ISO made the CD-Rom work a lot more harder reading the disk, thus some more teeth flew off the gear which is now the reason nothing boots up at all.

Well, as I said, the motor doesn't spin until the laser has moved back to center. If the laser doesn't move, then that is the problem, not the laser per say. You could crack the lens in two, but the transport should still move to the center and try to read the CD.

Its highly unlikely that CD-Rs have the ability to smash gears from 10mm away, and as I understand it most of the "extra work" that the drive has to do is far more likely to tax the laser's focusing mechanism than the gears since replacing the HOP3 seems to fix people's problems, and the HOP3 doesn't include any gears...does it?

[GUTS]

Elnino my old CDRom unit had the EXACT same problem, it played regular games fine (getting stuck on a load screen occasionally until I tapped the system) then when I started playing a  Xak III burn I noticed it would get stuck on loading screens more and more until it just wouldn't load anymore.  After opening it up I found one of the gears was missing teeth.  Fortunately I knew a guy with a busted laser assembly who sold me his gear and it fixed the problem permanently, but it was annoying as hell.

My assessment was that the gear was already a little f*cked up since I had to tap the system once in a while to get past a load screen, and that maybe the burn of Xak III was on shitty media and was causing the laser assembly to grind the gears when it pushed it all the way out where it would sometimes get stuck.  I burned it again when I got my new gear and had no further problems.