Neo Geo CDZ read failures after new lens and recap - Alternatives?

I'm about at the end of my rope with my CDZ. I picked it up used, and it looks like it came from a smoker's home, if that's worth anything. The darn thing randomly fails to read the disc and quits mid-game even after the following repairs:

- New (generic) laser
- Complete recap of system and power supply
- Fine tuning of laser pot

What the heck else can I try? Since I switched lasers before recapping, I suppose I could put the old one back in, but I don't think that will help. The power supply cable seems to be making good contact at the system. Could it be a connection problem? The ribbon cable connecting the main board to the drive-control board? Interference coming from somewhere?

Are there any other likely culprits? Or should I cross my fingers and hope someone makes an ODE like the Rhea?

It fails with real discs, too, by the way.

If that's a generic Chinese laser you might need to try another. On my duo I went through two that didn't work until the third worked perfectly. Otherwise, you might need to tweak adjustment pots, but I'm not really familiar with the cdz laser so someone with more experience will need to chime in.

GohanX said:

If that's a generic Chinese laser you might need to try another. On my duo I went through two that didn't work until the third worked perfectly. Otherwise, you might need to tweak adjustment pots, but I'm not really familiar with the cdz laser so someone with more experience will need to chime in.

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Bingo, had to go through several lasers before getting one working in my Saturn.

Have you removed the bottom metal shielding from the console case? That's a requirement for the CDZ.

Thanks for your replies.

GohanX said:

If that's a generic Chinese laser you might need to try another. On my duo I went through two that didn't work until the third worked perfectly. Otherwise, you might need to tweak adjustment pots, but I'm not really familiar with the cdz laser so someone with more experience will need to chime in.

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Bingo, had to go through several lasers before getting one working in my Saturn.

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While the problem may indeed be the laser itself, I'm skeptical for the following reasons.

- The behavior is exactly the same between my old original laser and new Chinese generic. Sometimes, a game will play for hours with no trouble. Other times, I'll get multiple read failures very near each other. The rate is about the same.

- I replaced the lasers in a few PC-FX units with similar generics from China, and my experience there was that it was all or nothing - some worked completely, some didn't work at all. None of them only worked temperamentally.

Have you removed the bottom metal shielding from the console case? That's a requirement for the CDZ.

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You mean the shielding inside the case, directly under the main PCB? I would be surprised if that were causing the problem, but if it works, I'll take it. Or do you mean something else?

EDIT: Ah, it appears that some people have experienced overheating and fixed the problem by removing that shield. I don't think that's my problem. It's not all that uncommon for my system to have a read-failure within minutes of being turned on, or even during the initial load.

Yeah, that's what I mean. It sounds like your errors are occurring too early for that to be the problem, but you must remove it anyway.

I've never removed anything from my CDZ and have had zero issues with it.

madman said:

I've never removed anything from my CDZ and have had zero issues with it.

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When you barely play games the thermal cycles never get enough power to do damage.

ChuChu Flamingo said:

When you barely play games the thermal cycles never get enough power to do damage.

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Please do not troll in the tech forum.

madman said:

I've never removed anything from my CDZ and have had zero issues with it.

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You're lucky. Mine would last about 40 minutes with the shield in place before getting a read error. Very common.

Thanks again for the replies.

As long as I'm not risking anything by removing the bottom shield, I can certainly do it.

Googling old discussions here makes it seem like people have only gotten benefit from this, so I guess I'll try it and report back.

Welp, I took out the shield and taped some 1-yen coins on the bottom of the case to raise the system, and the results have been interesting.

In four hours of on-time, there have been no system resets mid-game. There have, however, been a couple instances of CDDA music cutting out for a split second and coming back in. Also, there was one time that the system didn't recognize the game disc at boot, went to the music-player screen, then recognized it and started.

I might try to re-calibrate my generic laser now.

Actually, I still have the original laser, and it might not actually be bad. Does anyone know the default position of the blue potentiometer on an original HB151AF?

I think you're on the right track. Adjust the laser.

Arrgh. I just had four read-failures in about an hour. Unless the generic laser happens to be burning out, I don't think that that's the problem. My instinct is that it's a connection issue somewhere. Ever since I first had this system, read-failures have tended to come in waves. Either the system happily works for hours, or I'm lucky to get 20 minutes. There is nothing in the immediate environment that changes, and no real sources of interference. I suppose it could be temperature or humidity-related, however.

Let's just suppose for the sake of argument that it's not the laser itself. We know it's not old caps or the bottom shield. What else could it be? Has anyone done any other types of fixes?