Busted CDX. Advice?

[spatterlight]

Just hooked up two Sega CDX systems. (Two from the same guy. Weird. I know.) One works pretty great. Won't play a couple of my burnt games, but that's another thread.


The other one plays Genesis games fine, but when it comes to CDs, any CDs at all, it won't even spin up. Just sits and waits for 1-4 seconds, then informs me NO DISC.


Tried holding the door down manually, pressing the CDs down harder, and running the CDX sideways and upside down, a la wonky PS1s. None of these dumb schemes work. Anyone have troubleshooting tips?

 

[ExCyber]

It's hard to do meaningful diagnostics on CD readers without a scope. You might try finding the actual lid switch and making sure it's connected (unless the behavior is different than having the lid open).

 

[spatterlight]

Nope. When the CD door's open, it tells me to close the door. Think I should ebay this thing as a "for-parts" kind of investment?

 

[dibz]

I don't know much about CDX's personally, but this isn't uncommon for cd-rom drives to do. Often times it's just the sensor that detects if a disc has been inserted, I've heard tell of people ripping apart other CD-Roms and frankensteining them for a fix -- to fix cheap cd-roms that are integrated into something expensive.

 

[spatterlight]

Oh! Interesting. I've done a similar fix on the disk drive of an old SNES copier, it was a snap. Didn't know CD laser assemblies were modular in the same way. Guess I'll go seek out an old Discman.

 

[siamese]

I have a broken cdx too! and that might help

 

[Zaksund]

It's old, but I got a free model 1 SCD once that refused to spin discs. There were 3 screws on the back of the CD block and by turning the leftmost one slightly I got it to read again. Not sure if the CD block in the CDX is the same, but there's probably something similar.

It could be the motor, but that's never actually been the culprit in any faulty drive I've come across.