PS3 blu-ray drive dead

@CHCEG03 - I also fixed mine this way and I too have a small concern in the back of my mind about how long the new drive will last. So far it's managed to play all games perfectly EXCEPT for Fallout 3 which gets really slow and laggy for some reason.

Resistance 2, MGS4, LBP, MW2 all work fine. I haven't tried GTA4 yet mainly because I regret buying it in the first place. Haha

The drive itself seems to be a bit noisier than the original which worries me a bit but it doesn't seem to have any ill effects on gameplay.

@cheesytot - I would guess that you've done the right thing to fix your problem but you've simply not put the drive back in properly. Try taking it out and putting it back again, follow youtube videos to make sure you're putting everything back where it should be.

 

I also did this and my refurb laser died within 20 minutes and my ps3 had the latest firmware, but i also believe the talk about the newer firmware killing single beam lasers are true becasue those firmwares are made to work with the dual beam laser and to my belief it make the single beam laser work twice as hard eventually leading to burnout and i ant talking about the game.

 

Shadowz9 - I've been away from the PS3 scene for a while but due to the weather thought I'd have another play. I was interested in your response to my problem as i still have the unit. Both the original and new (ebay purchase) BR drives seem to work (spin/ light up and move) but I never get the loading bubble on the dash board. I recently tried a replacement hdd as I read this might work, again no luck. Apart from not reading any type of disc the unit is fine i.e you can download and play these games. The concern I have is could the problem be the DR controller board (the unit was 2nd hand so I don't know history). I have another 60GB which has an intermittent HDMI fault which drops out to a black screen for a few seconds intermittently but get more often the longer it's run (works fine over scart so is used like this). At the moment I don't want to break the seal on this one to swap the drives. Do you really think the problem is drive related and not anything else? (I have checked all cables several times and they all seem fine but have never tried to 'buzz them out' to check there 100%. Any response from any fellow PS3 fixers would be great......may be this year it will get fixed!

 

MY invoice only tells me the warranty info and my model number of playstation, which now you bring to my attention i guess I should have something about the work they did. I will check further. thanks

My invoice does not show any particular part, just lists the warranty info and my model number of playstation. thanks

 

Ok the problem began when my ps3 got the YLOD. Did some research and found how to reflow the chips on the motherboard. Put it back together and it worked fine, but I did not have any thermal compound for the chips and the heat syncs. Ordered some online and applied it, but when I put it back together the case was not aligned properly and it was blocking the mouth of the blu-ray drive. I didn't notice this and I hit the eject button since I forgot to take the disk out before I took everything apart. When the disk didn't eject I noticed the mouth was blocked and fixed the case. When it was all fixed I hit the eject and the disk came out fine. When I went to put a new disk in the ps3 wouldn't take the disk in. The blue light flashes when the disk is inserted and even turns it self on when I try to put a disk in when it's off, but still the drive doesn't pull anything in. The games and movies on the HDD work fine. There's usually no noise coming from the drive when I try to put a disk in except for an ocasional high pitch sound. The gears in the drive seem to be fine and where they should be. Is this a problem with the motor? The board for the blu-ray? Or something else? If its a mechanical problem I was just going to order a whole new drive from psxboy or should I cut my losses and just buy a slim? I have the original 80g model.

 

I have the same problem just press the the eject button when you first start your ps3 like 2 or three times and you will see the hard drive indicator light up

 

Yes there is a youtube video but here is what you do to reset the drive:

1. When looking at the gears and the lens and tray, there are 4 little guide wheels attached to a receiving mechanism that is held in place with (1) screw at the center of the front of the tray. Remove this screw. Under this mechanism, in the tray you will se three gears that lead to the black left slotted control arm thingy. Chances are right now if you try and move this black thingy up and down it will not move: so here's whatyou do....one of those 3 gears is held in place by a screw. remove this screw. Remove the gear and the contracption will reset (as long as this gear is removed, the black sliding arm thingy will move freely up and down. Okay so now that you did this, replace the gear, screw it back in, and replace the mechanism with 4 guidewheels by screwing it back in place. Okay one more thing now...before you put the black lid back on the tray, look at the lid: there are some white and grey trigger arms and these need to be set in place before you screw the lid back on the tray...the proper config is simple. first ensure the arms fall loosely into the most natural place. then when attaching the lid, do so while holding the lid and tray vertically so the part where the disk would slide in if facing down. Look at the lid, to the left top trigger arm thingy there are two holes, and they not be blocked by the loose white trigger arm thingy. If these holes are blocked, gently separate the lid from the tray and the piece will trigger arm will fall into the proper place. Then close it up, screw it shut and attach the control board. Now the drive should take your disks and spit them out as well.

 

I'm trying to diagnose what the problem in my ps3 is as well. Of course calling Sony was no help as it is now out of warranty.

So like everyone else Blu-Ray discs are not being read. I tried the easier things first such as Formatting the HD via the ps3's format utility and also the 'Restore PS3 System' option. Neither seemed to work. Sometimes after running Restore File System, from the Recovery Menu (it says I have corrupt files and 'fixes' them but when I do that option again it says there are corrupt files again) I can see the Blu-Ray disc and can play it w/o issue. As long as I leave the PS3 running when I get it to work and don't remove the disc I can play it for hours without issue, until I turn off the system.

The fact that I can get it to sometimes work (no luck today though) and can play the game for hours without issue makes me think that it isn't the blu-ray drive itself but that's just a guess. But then I would think formatting the HD would fix it if its a software problem, unless of course the PS3 doesn't actually completely wipe the drive clean.

(After doing a full format via the ps3 utility and then running Restore File System it still says there are corrupt files. ???)

Anyone know what might be causing this problem?

 

I am having somewhat the same problem and as you can telll, am rather new to this site. My blu-ray drive drive died shortly after Thanksgiving and I tried all of the usual fixes. Reformat, check system files, etc. Nothing. But it is the older 60gb model and it will only play ps2 games. No cds, dvds, or blu ray games/movies. Is it actually the blu ray drive or is this problem easily fized and I'm just not looking in the right places. I havent opened it up yet, as I'm still debating on sending it to sony or fixing it myself. Might I have some help please?

 

hi..
i've changed a few bluray modules, and once tried swapping the diodes.
unfortunately they are aligned at the factory and there is no way to repair that once messed up (even knocking the laser diode mount will break them)

On the flip side, the spare diodes are handy if you have a bad module as typically failure of any one diode will result in the infamous Disk Read Error.

Watch out though as the beam from these is somewhat hazardous (near UV)
and the diodes are incredibly overload/static sensitive. I have blown one just by powering the red and blue diodes at the same time.

the optics in these are handy for making white lasers as well as the beam splitters work in reverse.

if you happen to have a broken one or 3, feel free to PM me and i am happy to pay postage etc.

the hd-dvd ones are slightly tougher but not by much. if you are playing with these its well worth buying a proper driver module and testing with a sacrificial diode (or luxeon) and 'scope it to look for overvoltage spikes.

 

One thing I learned recently is that if the laser is unable to focus for some reason (bad laser, smudge or dirt on laser, etc...) then the motor won't spin up and it may seem like a bad motor when it's just the laser.

The drive checks the laser first and if the laser doesn't pass it's test then it basically gives up.

I had one that would pull the disk in then not spin up. Replaced just the laser (not the whole laser assembly) and voila! It's fixed.

Everyone who has problems with a drive not accepting discs please read:

In order for the drive to function at all, EVERY teeny little sensor and gear has to be in the right position before you close it up.

The sliders on either side: The one on the right should be all the way toward the front of the drive and the one on the left should be all the way toward the back of the drive. The one on the left should actually be far enough "up" that the round gear is not making contact with the straight gear on the slider.

The laser: Should be as close to the front as possible. Just turn the little metal rod/gear on the right til you get it one "click" past as far as it can go.

The little "disc grabbers": they should both spring back to their middle position, and you should check the teeeeny springs on the outer sides to make sure they're not hanging loose.

This is a big one:

Make SURE that the little white swingy thing on the inside is NOT covering these holes as you close it up.


If your drive still won't accept disks then you should double and triple check all this stuff. If it still doesn't work, you may have a bigger problem!

 

hi everyone.

my ps3 doesn't read any disc. The problem started at the end of December, last year. I had to insert and eject the bluray disc several times before it would read it, but it read immediately all the dvds and cds. After a month the problem dissapeared until last weekend. Now it doesn't read any disc. I cleaned the lens but it did not solve the problem. I made some tests considering what you all wrote in this thread. The laser doesn't light up at all. If i insert a disc, nothing is moving. I moved the laser farther and started the ps3: still it doesn't light up, but the bluray moves it back to its place. That magnet in the center is not spinning up whatever i do. I can spin it manually though without any trouble.

I can do all the other things: i can watch movies, listen movies, play downloaded games or demos, surf the net.

Does any of you tell me exactly what is the problem? Is it only the laser?

 

Hey Tech Gurus.

So, I recently started getting errors on my out-of-warranty PS3 (40GB model CECHG01) during, what most of my friends consider, the WORST POSSIBLE TIME (Heavy Rain, FFXIII, GoW3 and DragonAge Expansion all sitting on my table). So far, I have encountered 2 separate error codes. First, I would only receive the 80010514 code which states there is a problem with the disc. Shortly after that, I received the 80028F08 code, which Sony DOES NOT HAVE IN THEIR DATABASE. They created a code for something they don't have record for.

Anyways, the main issue is the fact that any game will FREEZE after a certain period of play. Sometimes after 5 minutes, sometimes after 10, it varies. The drive has no issue accepting or ejecting discs. However, when the game does freeze, I can hear the drive "whirring" very quickly, then getting slower and slower until you hear only a few clicks. I am still able to eject after that, and every other function (as far as I have tested) works fine. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the issue could be? Is there any other information I could provide to give better insight? I really don't feel like shelling out $150 when I bought my system for $400+ and I should expect it to last more than a couple years.

 

I repair ps3s and i have one unit right now which was not spinning discs.

After changing lasers, mechs, every ribbon cable, the disc drive power cable, disc drives i cannot get the disc to spin.

I was not able to figure out why the whole mech was not raising up to the disc when it was inserted. When i did some more realigning it would raise but then jam and the disc would be stuck.

So after days of working on this single unit i went from inserting and ejecting discs fine but no mech raising and no spinning. The two white arms on the top which surround the white magnetic cap were not moving. Now i have everything aligned properly but when the mech raises i hear a springy snap.

The metal arm on the bottom of the drive which connects the two black sliders that move the mech up and down pops out. This leaves the disc stuck inside.

My opinion is that the logic board ic is bad. Could anyone chime in on this? I have gone through all the possible causes as i listed at the beginning. I believe the board is telling the motor to keep turning and it moves the black sliders so far that the little metal arm pops out and causes the drive to get stuck with the disc inside.

If any of this is still unclear please let me know. I hope someone can help me out here. I have never had this problem and have always been able to fix stuck drives but this one is a nightmare. I have spent 3 days working and diagnosing it. Nothing has worked.

 

the easy answer here, is try another drive in the PS3, obviously swapping over the board, if it now operates ok, then the mechanism is faulty in the original drive unit

 

you need a new laser, when they fail gradually they can give error codes and freezing issues

 

yes, just a laser should fix your issues

 

Hi,

Does anyone heard about a procedure to reconfigure the blue controller board to any PS3 ?
Seems like official repair guys have one !!

Regards.

 

the Sony guys might know how to do it, as it will be just abit of reprogramming, but i don't believe anybody else has been able to do it this way

this thread mentions swapping a chip over between boards, i think there is a link to a video of someone doing it in this thread