My 3 year old dvd player is now giving me NO DISK errors?

[spankey]

I have a philips dvd-751 model. Up till today. I have not had any trouble with this player. Lately when I try to play a BRAND new dvd out of the box or any other for that matter. I get through the movie a NO DISK error? Then it tries to eject it....

I have NEVER cleaned the lens on this thing? SHould I? Are the cleaners safe to use? Does anyone recomend any good ones?


Also do you think this could be it? Dirt maybee?

Thanks for the tech info..
Spankey

[redwudz]

I always try the easiest method first. Try some 'canned air' that you can get at most electronics stores or Radio Shack. Make sure you keep the can level so you don't shoot any liquid into the mechanism. Open the drawer and shoot it down toward the area of the lens. Try a disk again. If this doesn't work, you can try a lens cleaner package. Usually a lens cleaner won't do much unless you have a chunk of grease or other sticky material on the lens. If this doesn't work, try it a couple of more times. If no luck, it is probably a lost cause. DVD players do get worn, and if the focus of the laser is out of spec it's usually better to replace it.

[spankey]

THanks for the info and the help. I will try the air... I mean, roughly how long does a dvd player last? I only use it once a month, maybee twice if that...

I want to get a 5 disk player as a replacement if this one goes for my svcd collection.....

Thanks again....

Spankey

[Hardcoreruss]

Try unplugging it from the wall and leavng it off for about ten minutes.

I have a panasonic a-160 bought it in 1998 for £429.99. Still going strong and has never given me grief.

[Norwich8]

Are you serious? If the canned air, CD cleaner-disk and unplugging don't fix it, the only other solution is to replace it? My four year-old Sony S570D shows "no disc" on slightly scratched DVDs, no matter how well I clean them.

[FulciLives]

THanks for the info and the help. I will try the air... I mean, roughly how long does a dvd player last? I only use it once a month, maybee twice if that...

I want to get a 5 disk player as a replacement if this one goes for my svcd collection.....

Thanks again....

Spankey

Since you only use it once or twice a month can a 5 disk model hold your entire colleciton?

If so that would rock! Go for it!!!

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Thorn]

My old apex (ad-703) stopped reading any recorded media and skipped playing audio cds (after 2 years). Other methods didn't work, so I followed my friend's suggestion to grease the rails. I pulled the whole thing apart, oiled the rails and used a lense cleaner on the lense.

Yea, sounds dumb but I was going to toss it. It actually worked better for a few weeks, then failed again. It's now in a box... Maybe if I had used grease instead of oil, it would have lasted. Wasn't worth the effort for me to keep trying, but it may be worth one try for you.

[Norwich8]

Grease the rails? What does that mean? I took a look at my player and couldn't figure out how to take it apart: everything seems well sealed. How can I clean the lens? It's at the point where I know I can only watch movies so obscure no-one else rents them so they are unscratched!

(Which means I can recommend "Raising Victor Vargas" because no-one at Hollywood has rented it but not "Winged Migration" because it had a couple of scratches hence: "No Disc").

So how do I de-sensitize the player?

[hech54]

Damn guys....you could have had a little cheapie $39 DVD player from Circuit City buy now. I was upset when my 1983 VW Rabbit diesel died too....but it had 170,000 miles on it.
Let it go........

[Thorn]

If one of those lense cleaning CDs doesn't do any good, it's probably not worth your effort. I only pulled mine apart because I was bored (and I'm a cheap bastard) and it was easy enough to open mine. Ask yourself how much it's worth to fix this rather than getting a new cheap one (and they're damn cheap now).

Remember that today's technology is cheaper than the old solid-state stuff... but it's also intended to be thrown away after a few years rather than 10 years like the old stuff was designed for. Things fails. Consider it par for the course.

On the note of rails: If you got it apart you'd see that the lens travels on rails (so it can go from the inner track on the disc to the outer track). If you can't get it apart without breaking anything it's a moot point!

[handyguy]

if that happens I turn off the player with the disk in it & turn it on again.

[Poppa_Meth]

if you are going to get a cleaner get a good one. the Maxell is decent. it has good brushes on it. the Phillips one sucks. has a little peice of felt on it that looks like a piece of the soft side of velcro.

[Norwich8]

Thanks; and buying another one may be the answer. I'm not so sure it's a cleaning issue, though, as it will play clean, unscratched DVDs!

[Roundabout]

Grease the rails? What does that mean? I took a look at my player and couldn't figure out how to take it apart: everything seems well sealed. How can I clean the lens?

I fixed thousand of CD & DVD players over the years for Sony and I can tell you from experience that to "Grease the rails" is a bad idea, it will tend to make it stick even worse (if that was even the problem to start with). These rods are chrome-coated and it's unlikely that they need anything, certainly not grease or oil. They possibly could use a good cleaning, using alcohol and a soft rag to remove residue, but don't put oil or grease on them, for God's sake!

As for the lens, you can open up the unit and use a q-tip and denatured alcohol (don't use isopropyl, it tends to smear and leave residue) to remove dust and smog buildup and this may correct your problem, if that is what's causing it not to read. Sony had a lot of problems with "laser sag", meaning the lens itself would not be able to travel high enough to focus properly on the disc above. This is caused by the suspension mechanism for the lens, which is basically cheap nylon material affected by heat and time, the weight of the lens, though small, would slowly begin to drop the lens lower into the pickup assembly causing an offset in the focus travel. Not much you can do for that, except replace the FOP (optical pickup) with a new one. Sometimes the laser diode itself gives out or reduces output, again, the FOP must be replaced. So if you try cleaning it and it still doesn't work, ditch the unit or have the FOP replaced, not much other choice.