After years of faithful service my aftermarket, self-installed AIWA CDC-X15 car CD receiver seems to have lost the ability to play during bumpy rides without skipping. Now, the slightest little jolt will render the player silent for a few seconds, after which it resumes play where it left off. If the car is at rest, or the road is totally flat it plays perfectly. (FYI, the radio is uneffected by the bumps.)
I know that CD players come with buffering circuitry that is supposed to “absorb” the skips. Is it possible that my buffer circuits have broken but the player still plays when at rest? Or might it be something mechanical that has broken or come loose or something?
In any case, is this an easy/cheap fix, preferably something I can do myself? Or is it one of those cases where fixing it will cost me $145 and a new one will cost $150?
I had an aiwa MP3 player in my old car – had it for three years. It stated to do the same.
I ensured my discs were clean. I also ran a cleaner disc through the player which helped, but I had to run it fairly frequently (every month, maybe a little less) to keep it that way.
my home cd play started skipping randomly at one point…
i ran one of those cleaning CD’s, which helped some, but
didn’t really fix the problem. i finally pulled it off the
shelf & took it apart. i used a small paintbrush to clean
the lense… and noticed there was a couple pieces of hair
wrapped around some of the moving parts which i removed.
afterwards it played normally again.
try a cleaning CD… if that doesn’t work and you decide to
replace the unit, take it apart and clean it first
So called “CD cleaning discs” are bad news. They frequently cause more harm than good.
For basics on how to clean a CD drive correctly, see the RepairFAQ info. Note that the hardest part is getting it open for a car/compact CD player.
Cleaning is a good idea if possible.
Another common problem is when the mounting comes loose. Definitely go thru every bit of that and double check it. If the mounting was done badly in the first place, it might be too late to save it.
You may want to try a couple sweeping blasts of canned air to clear out the dust, etc. that has accumulated on the lens. Definitely better than those cleaning CDs, which can scratch the lens and can get stuck in a slot-loading player.
It could be that the laser itself is dying, and therefore the sensor is having trouble reading the disc and the player has to go back more often to re-read and falls behind, causing the skip. If that’s it, then you can only replace the unit.
My brother-in-law can use only black CDs. Don’t ask me why this works, but evidently it does. This will offer no help regarding store-bought stuff, but…
Please do not post information that can cause damage! If you had read the info on CD player I linked to, you will have seen that it specifcally recommends against doing just that.
Please double check against a reliable source (and RepairFAQ is certainly the best) before posting such “tips”.
Yes, typically, it is the laser. People forget the laser needs a supply of gasses to perform. Lasers in a lab can be recharged with the necessary gasses. However, commercial equipment is enclosed and not designed for recharging. So, the lesson I learned is not to dump a lot of money into my home CD player. I once had a top of the line Sony with all the bells and whistles. Long lived the CD player.
If you’re careful there is absolutely nothing wrong with using compressed air to blow the dust out of a unit. As long as you don’t shove the tube halfway into the unit and don’t focus the air on one spot it’ll be fine.
I’ve done this many times with many different units and have never made it worse.
Blowing into the unit with your mouth runs the risk of introducing moisture and other crap, which is never good. Using a squeeze bulb might help and is safer, but might not be enough to help any.
The site you mention does recommend using compressed air in a couple places.
