Flash carts could be damaging consoles?

Neorebel

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Normally I would file this under such paranoia as 'disc rot is going to get all your games,' or 'your laser is going to wear out if you play a CD-R,' but there seems to be some actual content behind this idea in the link below. I was wondering what some of the more tech-saavy members thought about this? Is it bollocks?

For me personally I've always mostly used the actual carts, I saved everything from when I was a kid and added on to it before there were everdrives and such, but I do have the stray flash cart here and there of some kind, for handhelds.

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/07/flash_carts_could_be_slowly_killing_your_retro_consoles
 
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Niko

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You know disc rot is a real thing, and cheap/poorly burned CD-Rs do put extra strain on the laser.
 
Neorebel

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Niko said:
You know disc rot is a real thing, and cheap/poorly burned CD-Rs do put extra strain on the laser.
Click to expand...

Oh yeah, definitely, I was just trying to express that when you read about these things online it makes it sound like a giant disaster. Like, the disc rot issue has never come up for me, even with 20 year old CDRs... but I'm sure it will happen eventually, seems to be more of a big issue where there is a lot of humidity. ... and the occasional CDR won't kill the console, but yeah, if you go crazy with that and the thing is seeking way more than usual it may break sooner
 
JoeAwesome

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I see it as a lot of the same paranoia, but there's some truth to the damage flash carts can cause.
 
ggallegos1

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We had a thread here about this very topic but for the life of me I can't find it

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D

Dochartaigh

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I just read that article since I picked up a SD2SNES and Mega Everdrive x7 on their black friday sale. Seems like SD2SNES is perfect, but Mega Everdrive x7 is still too high a voltage (or not properly regulated or something like that). Honestly though, a Genesis is so inexpensive if it actually does break it I'll just use my backup or buy a new one - small price to pay for the full library of games (the only game I haven't been able to play yet is Virtua Racing which has the enhancement chip in it - and it's the only game with one of those chips).

They didn't mention anything about the N8 (NES) Everdrive - which I would cry if that broke since it's RGB modded which isn't cheap - but whatever - I'll deal with it if anything happens (which it seems like this is overblown anyway so I'll probably be just fine and won't worry about it).
 
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XxHennersXx

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SpamYouToDeath said:
How do you "strain" a laser?
Click to expand...

The laser assembly. The disc has to make multiple passes because the laser can’t read it, so the motor is speeding up and slowing down more than it was designed for and making it wear down faster.

Is it real? Yes. How negligible is the real question (quality CD-Rs, probably minimal at best) Even consoles that only read professionally pressed discs lasers will go out, fueling the need for ODEs. Which also have the added benefit of faster loads.
 
ShootTheCore

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SpamYouToDeath said:
How do you "strain" a laser?
Click to expand...

The laser is a diode. CD-Rs are more difficult than pressed discs for a laser to read, so the CD drive controller compensates by increasing the amount of current going through the laser diode so it can successfully read the CD-R. The additional current shortens the overall operating life of the diode.
 
wyo

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Niko said:
You know disc rot is a real thing, and cheap/poorly burned CD-Rs do put extra strain on the laser.
Click to expand...

Disc rot is real but unless there's been a scientific study that proves CR-Rs cause premature wear, I'm going to call BS on that one. Correlation /= causation, and all that...

Should also point out that disc rot is mainly due to manufacturing defects, and is not inevitable.
 
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SpamYouToDeath

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I can only speak definitively about the PSX here, but other old consoles - especially those using Sony parts - will be similar.

XxHennersXx said:
The laser assembly. The disc has to make multiple passes because the laser can’t read it, so the motor is speeding up and slowing down more than it was designed for and making it wear down faster.
Click to expand...

Small retries are handled with tracking coil seeks, not sled seeks. The tracking coils are always energized as part of the readout, regardless. Unless there are such severe errors that the drive re-zeroes the sled and tries again from the beginning, there's no extra wear.


ShootTheCore said:
The laser is a diode. CD-Rs are more difficult than pressed discs for a laser to read, so the CD drive controller compensates by increasing the amount of current going through the laser diode so it can successfully read the CD-R. The additional current shortens the overall operating life of the diode.
Click to expand...

At least in the PlayStation, the laser diode does not vary in power with any property of the disc. A separate light path with a separate detector (the "mirror diode") driving a separate control loop is used to maintain constant laser brightness across temperature variations.
 
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