Samsung HD-960 stuck on LOAD

[moviegeek71]

This player does nothing, just stays on "LOAD", there is no disc in it. It will power up and power down but will not open. Did I buy a load of junk! I have unplugged it and let it rest but still "LOAD" is all I get out of it. When I press open it stays stuck on "LOAD" but once the screen did display "OPEN" but it stayed stuck and didn't open. I bought it used and it has worked fine for the last month.

[redwudz]

Not a lot of advice. But unplug it for about a half hour. Then plug it in and power on while holding down the 'Open' button. If that doesn't work and nothing else worked, it's probably toast. Someone may have performed a bad flash on it or it's just dying on it's own. Electronic devices aren't really made to repair these days, so I would probably just toss it.

[moviegeek71]

I unplugged it for a while, it's working right now, we'll see what happens next time after this movie. Thanks.

[moviegeek71]

Humm, not sure what the problem was, it's working fine now. Hopefully that doesn't happen again as I'm very pleased with this player*.

* although I plan to upgrade to the 1080P7 when a region free hack is listed for R1 players.

[moviegeek71]

Well I had this problem again today, it's been a week since it did this last but I do use the DVD player more on the weekends of course.

So again, it just sat there with "LOAD" on the screen not doing anything, but this time I took the cover off to see what's happening and the laser is not coming on.

Now, here is something odd, while I was trying to look at the laser I unplugged the HDMI cable to pull the player toward me more and the moment I unplugged the HDMI cable the laser came to life.

The next time it has this probem, hopefully never, I'll see what happens with the HDMI cable and make an update here.

[jman98]

I'm wondering if this is a heat related issue. Are you using this player for long periods of time in a row? Let's define "long" as 3+ hours without a break. Is it in a poorly ventilated place where you've got a lot of stuff piled up around it? If the answers to either or both of those are "yes", you may be having a heat buildup related problem. Solutions would be to move stuff away from the player to allow it to have more air to cool off and to use the player for shorter time periods (say 2 hours, then turn it off for a while).

[moviegeek71]

Hi, thanks for your reply. No, the DVD player was cold as it had not been used since the night before about 12 hours had past since it was turned off. It was completely cold when I turned it on the next day to find the "LOAD" problem. Also, no, it is not buried in a case or poorly ventilated, it is on it's own shelf (the top shelf) of the stand that holds the TV.

[moviegeek71]

Now, here is something odd, while I was trying to look at the laser I unplugged the HDMI cable to pull the player toward me more and the moment I unplugged the HDMI cable the laser came to life.

The next time it has this problem, hopefully never, I'll see what happens with the HDMI cable and make an update here.

The player got stuck again tonight, it would not open, I unplugged the HDMI cable and it opened immediately as before. Any reason this could be happening? I tried a different HDMI cable but it did the same.

[Krispy Kritter]

Likely isn't much that you can do. If it's under warranty, you could have it serviced, otherwise, I'd start looking for a replacement.

[moviegeek71]

Yes, I understand that, but I'd like to know the technical cause just to learn from this.

[Krispy Kritter]

The "LOAD" error typically means the player can't recognize the media. This can be caused by using an unsupported media or a dirty/faulty player.

[moviegeek71]

I started having other problems, the picture was going crazy and I assumed it was the HDMI out that was the culprit. This DVD player is in very very good shape, like new; and I bought a used one with a broken disc tray. I swapped the motherboard (if that's what it's called in a DVD player) and the HDMI out problems were solved. However, the "LOAD" problem is still there and that makes me think it's a dirty laser, so I'll clean it soon. It's not the media, all my movies are factory production real DVD movies.

I have about $75 total in this player now and a bit of work but I like the design, it matches my TV. Also, this is the only 1080p HDMI Region 1 DVD player by Samsung that I can find a region code hack listed on here.

[scandragon]

Regarding the media.. Not all original dvds are the same quality.
I have a rather large collection of films, but I've noticed certain DVDs start breaking up a few months after I unwrap them (HINT: Disney Region 2 discs!)
Check the disc.. Does it look as it should, or has dark spots started appearing on it? And more importantly, does some areas appear thinner than when you first got it?

[moviegeek71]

I've never paid attention to which disc(s) give the error, the next time it happens I'll check. Thanks.

[moviegeek71]

However, the "LOAD" problem is still there and that makes me think it's a dirty laser, so I'll clean it soon.

I finally got around to cleaning the laser and it works SO much faster now and doesn't get stuck. It was just dirty, thanks for everyone's time and help.