I call on the collective Doper wisdom to help me with my DVD player. For a variety of reasons I hadn’t used it for a month or so, but yesterday I put in a disc to play while wrapping presents and it froze up approximately 20 minutes into the program. I tried two other discs and it did the same thing both times. The freeze up occurred between 19 and 23 minutes into each program.
Any body have any ideas what the problem is and how to fix it? Thanks!
The fact that the problem occurred for different DVDs suggest a machine problem. There’s a chance the player has some dust or something on its laser lens from sitting around for a while. Try a laser lens cleaner such as the ones made by Memorex or Allsop. They’re pretty cheap. Worth a try.
Not with the timing of the symptoms, IMO. No, those symptoms are more suggestive of a thermal problem–heating in a semiconductor device leading to failure when a certain temperature is reached. I don’t recommend the use of lens cleaners for DVD players, in any case, since they can often do more harm than good. One thing you can try before tossing it (they’re simply not worth repairing, given the low cost of new units) is to unplug it and leave it for a few hours before plugging it back in and trying it out. If it IS a thermal issue, as I suspect, this won’t help but if it’s simply a matter of corrupted program memory, then it may clear the problem.
Had the same problem. Stopped at approx. same point each time. A bit of fiddling with controls and it took off without further interruptions.
I assumed it was disk but forgot about it when disc finished. Will check it out this week-end with other new DVD’s
The symptom of the problem occurring at approximately the same place on different disks makes me suspect a head transport problem, not a heat problem. A heat problem would occur only if you had difficulties about 20 mins after first turning it on from cold. If you pop out the disk, reinsert and play, and then after 20 mins, it acts up again while still warm, it is more likely a physical problem with accessing the disk.
In my experience, DVD/CD drives are good for about a year or two, and I’m talking from experience with at least 50 drive units, both in computers and standalone player/recorders. When they start acting up, I disassemble them, clean off the chrome sliders with rubbing alchohol and very lightly lubricate them with silicone. They always come to life afterwards as if by magic.
I have a 1989 BSR CD player that started acting up in 1992. But with simple yearly treatments, it works perfectly to this day and is in frequent use.
I sometimes observe a pile of thick lube gunk that has accumulated on the sliders the first time I open the case. My guess is the manufacturers overload anything that moves with lube, which makes them work wonderfully during the warranty period, but causes them to fail prematurely shortly thereafter. I’ve heard of the same problem with camera lenses; the cheap ones feel smooth due to copious lube; the expensive ones don’t need the lube due to tighter tolerances, but last longer.
Taking the expedient and easiest approach first I tried unplugging it for a few hours. This seemed to solve the problem, once I plugged it back in of course. Thanks for the good advice, everyone!