Is my DVD player dying?

[impmon2]

When I bought this player from a store that is known for strange customer, employees who conveniently doesn't speak the language you speak, and and has made the expression low price to mean low quality as well, I expected my player to last a year or so.

That was 2001, my 3 disc GE 5803p, which I paid about $150 originally, lasted me all this time through my collection of around 500 DVDs (many watched 2 or 3 times), a hundred rental DVD, and a couple hundreds VCDs and DVD I made of Japanese Anime that aren't released in USA. That is probably around 2,000 discs played in its lifetime and easily more than 5,000 hours of operation.

Recently, it just won't play anything. When I load a disc, it takes a long time (3 or 4 minutes) before it decides there is no disc and skips to the next disc tray.

Think the player is dying? And if so, how should I deal with it? Just pitching it to a landfill seems undignified for a player that lasted for so long. The remote controller and manual will probably go to eBay since they still works.

[lordsmurf]

5,000 hours is unusually high -- you did get your money worth from it.
Time to replace.

[samijubal]

Try cleaning the lens and spindle before just giving up on it.

I've got way more hours than that on my DVD player.

[redwudz]

I'd agree that a through cleaning would be worth a try, even if you have to partially dissasemble it to get at the laser lens and the guides. If you haven't seen those, they look something like this CD player:



You might also check the slides that the laser assembly slides on and carefully lubricate them if needed. If nothing else you will learn more about the internals of a DVD player.

Make sure the unit is unplugged before you do any of this.

[videotim]

the problem may well be with the power supply components also. If the unit has an inbuilt power supply chances are that it is a switch mode and eventually the capacitors will die. This is a very common problem on the newer DVD players as all the units are coming out of China and certainly the the lower cost models in particular have the capacitor problem as they are made from cheaper components.

I would agree with lordsmurf that you have certainly had more than your moneys worth from this unit - I would replace it but I bet the new one doesnt last that long!