Gamecube DRE advice needed

[wisekrak]

My brothers GC started giving him some DRE's a few weeks back so I decided that this was the perfect motivation to pick up some gamebit's and start tinkering.

After trolling the web and this forum I have sumised that adjusting the POT might be my best bet for fixing it. After figuring out how to re-create the DRE consistantly, I set out trying to fix it.

I measued the resistance of the pot while disassembled and noted it. Then made slight adjustments and tested. Sometimes I had to wait quite some time (many hours) for the DRE to re-occur. After the final adjustment, I had a burn in for almost 50 hours and had decided that it was actually fixed untill I came home this afternood and found the error.

I am almost aout of the availble ranges(I think) that I can adjust this POT.
Here are my adjustments for the record.

Start .472 Kohms
1st .409
2nd .342
3rd .274
4th .032 - This is the one that lasted more than 2 days

After that, I made a LARGE adjustment and set the resistance to 1.011
At this point, the disk would not even spin up when powered on.

I have set the resistance back to .492 and am testing again.

What I would like to know is, am I wasting my time??? Am I even on the right track?

[Darth Sensei]

Dave,

How much time have you put into this? At what point do you forget about it and buy a new one? :D

D

[wisekrak]

You should know more than anyone Cuewarrior, that I hav a LOT of time and little money....... Smartass :)

[omnedon]

VERY rough figures for you, based on about 20 NGC's I've done, with 75% success.

Normal start range of 0.495- 0.575

As soon as you decrease resistance you will get improvements (usually a longer period to DRE).

When I have success, which is no more DRE's after 4 hours plus of testing, it's usually a decrease of resistance of 0.150 to 0.225 (roughly). I wish there was a magic specific setting, but each unit has it's one specific start and ideal setting it seems. Apparently, it would be easier to find with an oscilloscope, and knowledge of the proper test points.

But this is a DIY forum, and we don't all have scopes! LOL

Your 0.032 range is 'off my scale' so to speak. I'd be fearing laser burnout BUT 2 days is 2 days. That's pretty damned good. Are you testing with the cover on? You should, as it's warmer in there with the cover on, and that does seem to have a negative effect on read reliability. I've had a unit that seemed fixed, that would DRE only with it's cover on, after 45 minutes. No cover on, and it was golden. One could then look at ventilation, but really, it's the laser that's at fault. It needs to be able to work under normal conditions, and warm is normal.

Good Luck, and Thanks for sharing your measurements. Good Stuff!