I have a Playstation 1 that is not working right. Maybe 1 out of every 10 tries it will start a game; the other 9 it either stalls out or says “Please insert a Playstation CD-ROM” (and yes, I’m using actual Playstation games, so this makes no sense). Also, it will occasionally freeze in the middle of games, although this is pretty rare. It happens on just about every game I try to play.
With any luck I will be getting a PS2 in a few months for my b-day, but I would rather like to play my games before then. I do not have enough money to buy another PS1, but don’t really care to much if this one stops working whilst I’m trying to fix it, since it’s not working anyway.
Sometimes one thing that can fix read problems is turning the entire unit upside-down. I first learned about this when there was a problem with a RPG I bought–might have been Chrono Trigger–where that was the fix.
It’s most likely dust, and canned air could help temporarily, but it’s only gonna push all the dust around and then the problem will return. I’ve had great success opening up the unit and carefully cleaning out all of the dust. Once everything is clean, get a Q-tip and dip it in some rubbing alcohol, shake it off so that it isn’t too wet, then clean off the lens. From my experience, this will make your Playstation like new.
Oh, and with canned air, hold the can upright. If you tilt it when spraying, you get a nearly-frozen propellant stuff which, while nifty for other applications, would be BAD for your PS.
Huh, it’s been so long since I used an old Playstation, I forgot that you don’t even have to disassemble the whole unit to get to the lens. I was looking around for a site with disassembly instructions, and I found this: http://www.ultimateconsoleguides.com/playstationclean.htm