Is this Phillips DVD drive toast?

[Shmingers]

Hi all, first and foremost, as the season approaches I want to wish everyone a happy holidays!

I bought a "for repair" 1.1 unit that needed a LOT of work. (This is a different unit than the Sharp TSOP unit from my other repair post.) Luckily I was able to repair everything except the Philips DVD drive. It was relatively clean - I cleaned the lens, replaced the drive belt and cleaned up a bit of corrosion on the board, but it's still dodgy.

Question, can this Philips drive be saved? On startup there is a high-pitched whine from inside the dvd drive, and when I push the eject button, it wants to open and close, but it will only travel about an inch or so and stick, then if I keep pushing the button it will eventually open fully but refuse to close again.

Is this a control board issue, or a motor issue? I rarely encounter DVD problems, so this is a new one for me.

Thanks all!

[FrostyMaGee]

7 minutes ago, Shmingers said:

Hi all, first and foremost, as the season approaches I want to wish everyone a happy holidays!

I bought a "for repair" 1.1 unit that needed a LOT of work. (This is a different unit than the Sharp TSOP unit from my other repair post.) Luckily I was able to repair everything except the Philips DVD drive. It was relatively clean - I cleaned the lens, replaced the drive belt and cleaned up a bit of corrosion on the board, but it's still dodgy.

Question, can this Philips drive be saved? On startup there is a high-pitched whine from inside the dvd drive, and when I push the eject button, it wants to open and close, but it will only travel about an inch or so and stick, then if I keep pushing the button it will eventually open fully but refuse to close again.

Is this a control board issue, or a motor issue? I rarely encounter DVD problems, so this is a new one for me.

Thanks all!

I had a few Samsungs that acted a bit weird like that. I ended up having to desolder the little board in front that controlled ejecting and hit it with some contact cleaner and ipa. I don’t think the Phillips drive have that separate board though. I want to say they have a pair of wires running from the main drive pcb to the motor. I’d start by checking those connections. May want to take a closer look at the board and see if anything looks amiss. As for the whine I don’t know exactly how yours sounds but I remember the Phillips drives being a little noisy even when they worked well.

[Shmingers]

34 minutes ago, FrostyMaGee said:

I had a few Samsungs that acted a bit weird like that. I ended up having to desolder the little board in front that controlled ejecting and hit it with some contact cleaner and ipa. I don’t think the Phillips drive have that separate board though. I want to say they have a pair of wires running from the main drive pcb to the motor. I’d start by checking those connections. May want to take a closer look at the board and see if anything looks amiss. As for the whine I don’t know exactly how yours sounds but I remember the Phillips drives being a little noisy even when they worked well.

Thanks for replying! The Phillips drives don't have a secondary board...I tried cleaning all of the contacts on the PCB (I have the large, one-piece board, not the other split-L type one) but I didn't check the motor wires. I'll give that a shot.

Also, Thompson and Phillips drives do give a small whir when they start up, but this is different, it's a very high-pitched whine, like a motor is spinning freely that shouldn't be, or faster than it should be? It's a very unpleasant sound.

[FrostyMaGee]

51 minutes ago, Shmingers said:

Thanks for replying! The Phillips drives don't have a secondary board...I tried cleaning all of the contacts on the PCB (I have the large, one-piece board, not the other split-L type one) but I didn't check the motor wires. I'll give that a shot.

Also, Thompson and Phillips drives do give a small whir when they start up, but this is different, it's a very high-pitched whine, like a motor is spinning freely that shouldn't be, or faster than it should be? It's a very unpleasant sound.

Sounds like there may be two different things then. As to the whine…is it constant or just when you power on for a brief period? I guess it’s always possible the spindle motor is going out. I’ve never actually had to replace one in the Xbox dvd drives (other things tended to stop working first and needed replacing lol) but that doesn’t mean they don’t wear out. You could try powering it on with the top of the dvd case off and see if you can narrow down the sound location. That would also be a decent test for the eject as well. You could see if the eject motor is engaging, if something is causing it to catch, etc. just mind the laser while doing this of course. You probably knew that but I felt obliged to mention it all the same.  By the way, if you manually move the tray in and out does it seem to operate smoothly? It may be a little tight due to the new drive belt but it should move back and forth pretty smooth. 

[Shmingers]

18 hours ago, FrostyMaGee said:

As to the whine…is it constant or just when you power on for a brief period?

Hi, yes it's constant when the system turns on. Now that I think about it, it does sound like the screech of a dying motor.

18 hours ago, FrostyMaGee said:

By the way, if you manually move the tray in and out does it seem to operate smoothly? It may be a little tight due to the new drive belt but it should move back and forth pretty smooth. 

Yep, the tray moves smoothly when I manually try to move it. I was hoping to try swapping in the working PCB from a second Philips drive I have, but that drive has the other type of control board (the split-style one). I'll try taking the drive lid off and observing it during startup. I'm also super-paranoid about looking at the laser, so I will follow my GameCube approach and put a small section of post-it over the lens.

[FrostyMaGee]

Did you ever have any luck with this one or determine if the whine was coming from the spindle motor or somewhere else?

[Shmingers]

On 12/20/2023 at 10:16 PM, FrostyMaGee said:

Did you ever have any luck with this one or determine if the whine was coming from the spindle motor or somewhere else?

Hey mate, no, I got side-tracked with other projects, but I fear it's the board. I was hoping to swap the board with another drive but I haven't encountered another one of this kind. I have a fully working Philips drive, but it has the split PCB, not the big square one.

If I figure out a solution, you will be the first one I reach out to. Also, happy holidays my friend. Hope all's good with you!

[FrostyMaGee]

On 12/23/2023 at 4:13 PM, Shmingers said:

Hey mate, no, I got side-tracked with other projects, but I fear it's the board. I was hoping to swap the board with another drive but I haven't encountered another one of this kind. I have a fully working Philips drive, but it has the split PCB, not the big square one.

If I figure out a solution, you will be the first one I reach out to. Also, happy holidays my friend. Hope all's good with you!

Same to you!  

I wonder if you could just swap the spindle out with another should that be the dying part?  Well be sure to post as you get in to it and narrow things down with the drive. It’s always possible it is the control board though. 

[Marty]

I'm going to piss in everyone's corn flakes and say it's almost never the capacitors on the DVD's PCB.

Number One is the lens and Number Two is failed resistors.

If it ever came down to failing capacitors, I would just pick up a non-working XBOX and salvage the disc drive out of it.

[FrostyMaGee]

I’ve had decent luck recapping the drives and sometimes replacing resistors. I have run in to far less truly dead lasers but they are out there. Recapping has, for the most part, kept me from having to do pot tweaks as often compared to years past.

 

Half of the time all they really need is a thorough cleaning and drive belt replacement tbh. Lol. I have had a few spindle motors that were actually problems though. Never had an eject motor die but have had many (on the drives that have separations for this) that needed thorough cleaning (usually with contact cleaner) before they would work properly again. That being said the motor wasn’t the issue as much as the control board for it. They’re all definitely showing their age at this point. I try to use my working drives as little as possible and usually suggest the same for any Xboxes I repair or sell. Most everyone wants to move to the hdd upgrade and play games that way so it works out. At least there’s a functioning one there when you really need it is my thought.