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Samsung Sdg-605 Drive Only Opens Occasionally Despite 'reconditioning' Drive Belt


XboxMon
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I reconditioned the drive belt by putting it in boiling water for a few minutes but despite this trick my OGXbox's DVD drive will only open occasionally if I'm persistent enough in pushing the eject button.  Then it seems to open/close normally for a while before going back to its troublesome state.  Could it be something other than a worn drive belt?  Is it time for a new drive?  My box is soft-modded with UnleashX

Edited by XboxMon
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8 hours ago, KaosEngineer said:

Get a new belt  or leave a disk in the tray.

Well, the old "leaving a DVD in the drive" trick worked, so thanks for that.  A few months ago I bought some Xbox 360 DVD drive belts for like 5 for a buck that some people on this forum had success with in putting in their OGXbox drives but they were way too big (25mm?) for my OGXbox's Samsung drive so I may have to swallow that bitter pill of purchasing the actual belts designed for the Samsung SDG-605 for 2 for $4.17 (USD).  Being a tightwad it kills me that have I to pay $2.00+ a piece for a couple of what are essentially rubber bands.

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6 hours ago, Forlorn Penguin said:

I bought 360 belts and used them in Samsung, Thomson and Hitachi drives for the OG without issue.

Hmm.  Interesting.  The 360 drive belt batch I bought off eBay from China (discussed  in another topic I started here a few months ago) didn't fit and were too big.  At any rate, I bought the "official" belts for the Samsung Sdg-605 from an American ebay seller yesterday.  Of course I paid at least 10 times as much but hopefully they'll fit.  Also ordered a StarTech IDE to SATA convertor from Amazon.  I guess I'm trying to wean myself off the cheapo chinese stuff when it comes to refurbishing my old OGXbox.

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I have reconditioned dozens of the Samsung DVD drives.  A good cleaning and a fresh belt will certainly help.  However, the sticking problem is most often caused by the magnet not releasing.  There is a very simple fix.  Get a circular sticker like the ones shown in the attached photograph and place it on the plastic spindle.  It helps reduce the magnetic connection.

I suppose you could also use some masking tape cut to size, in a pinch, which I have done.  I keep multiple sheets of these stickers because every Samsung eventually has the same sticking issue.

20181027_073818.jpg

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Great!

2 hours ago, AlaskaCC said:

I have reconditioned dozens of the Samsung DVD drives.  A good cleaning and a fresh belt will certainly help.  However, the sticking problem is most often caused by the magnet not releasing.  There is a very simple fix.  Get a circular sticker like the ones shown in the attached photograph and place it on the plastic spindle.  It helps reduce the magnetic connection.

I suppose you could also use some masking tape cut to size, in a pinch, which I have done.  I keep multiple sheets of these stickers because every Samsung eventually has the same sticking issue.

20181027_073818.jpg

Great! I have a feeling that a new belt won't solve the issue because i should have noticed at least some improvement when I "reconditioned" the old belt.  But your fix might just do the trick.  Thanks

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On 10/27/2018 at 10:53 AM, AlaskaCC said:

I have reconditioned dozens of the Samsung DVD drives.  A good cleaning and a fresh belt will certainly help.  However, the sticking problem is most often caused by the magnet not releasing.  There is a very simple fix.  Get a circular sticker like the ones shown in the attached photograph and place it on the plastic spindle.  It helps reduce the magnetic connection.

I suppose you could also use some masking tape cut to size, in a pinch, which I have done.  I keep multiple sheets of these stickers because every Samsung eventually has the same sticking issue.

20181027_073818.jpg

Update:  Your sticker fix worked perfectly!  The Samsung now opens and closes normally 100% of the time.  I added a new belt just to make it extra reliable.  However, I have a new issue: I'm getting lots of instances where DVDs can't be read.   Other times it works and launches  game DVDs fine.  Could it be the laser?  This guy on youtube used a multi-meter to see if the laser pot needed adjusting.  Do you think this will help if I attempted it? I think his is a Thompson but I assume the procedure is the same.

Edited by XboxMon
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Have you been through the process of cleaning the laser lens?  It might be worth doing that first before attempting to adjust the laser pot.  I typically use a 91% or higher isopropyl alcohol, a cotton swab and a careful, light touch.  Avoid pushing down on the lens.  Look carefully to see if there is any debris or film on it.  

In my experience, the age of the lens makes pot adjustment success a low probability event.  Still, it is kind of rewarding to extend the life of our old gear.  I have adjusted the laser on multiple Thomsons and a few Samsungs.  Finding the right points for measuring and then adjusting on the Samsungs took a bit of work. It is also a time-consuming process.  It has been a while and I can't really help you on the Samsung specifics.  Do a bit of research and report back here.  Good luck!

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11 hours ago, AlaskaCC said:

Have you been through the process of cleaning the laser lens?  It might be worth doing that first before attempting to adjust the laser pot.  I typically use a 91% or higher isopropyl alcohol, a cotton swab and a careful, light touch.  Avoid pushing down on the lens.  Look carefully to see if there is any debris or film on it.  

In my experience, the age of the lens makes pot adjustment success a low probability event.  Still, it is kind of rewarding to extend the life of our old gear.  I have adjusted the laser on multiple Thomsons and a few Samsungs.  Finding the right points for measuring and then adjusting on the Samsungs took a bit of work. It is also a time-consuming process.  It has been a while and I can't really help you on the Samsung specifics.  Do a bit of research and report back here.  Good luck!

Thanks, I'll try the alcohol cleaning thing first.  I must say, I've been burning myself out with refurbishing my old Xbox lately.  It's become an obsession with me. lol.  Recently attempted to upgrade the HDD from a completely filled Maxtor 100GB to a Seagate 1TB and it's not going smoothly.  Unless I can figure out a way to keep all my old Xbox games (which I spent hours and hours FTPing to my OGXbox five years ago) and emulator stuff when making the transference and extending my partition so I can get 1TB, I'll probably be taking a break.  I just don't have the patience anymore to reinstall everything on a new 1TB HDD and start afresh.

Edited by XboxMon
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On 10/29/2018 at 9:11 PM, AlaskaCC said:

Have you been through the process of cleaning the laser lens?  It might be worth doing that first before attempting to adjust the laser pot.  I typically use a 91% or higher isopropyl alcohol, a cotton swab and a careful, light touch.  Avoid pushing down on the lens.  Look carefully to see if there is any debris or film on it.

Update: I cleaned the laser lens with 91% Isopropyl alcohol but it didn't work.  My Samsung can't read discs.  It's weird because sometimes it works fine other times not at all, and this usually happens after I've opened my OGXbox up for whatever reason then reassembled it,  Sometimes I'm not even touching the DVD drive aside from maybe taking it out of the case before putting it back.  My DVD drive may suddenly work... or not.  I have nothing to lose now since its so unreliable therefore I'd like to try the pot adjustment.  Only problem is that the video tutorial on youtube (a link to it is posted on this forum) is not in HD and the camera is not close enough.  Where exactly on the pot are the contacts to use with the ohmmeter?

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