I think I killed my LaserActive!

[Anonymous]

Please help me! I'm hoping this is something someone has run into before and can give me some advice.

I was cleaning the gear assembly on the tray for my Laseractive (I won it relatively cheap on the bay, but it had sand inside it when I got it x_x ), and if you've ever done any work inside a Laseractive you know there is an upside down circuit board which needs to be unscrewed and 'flopped' over to the side.

Well, I had a disc in the system playing, and I started moving the system around when I accidentally bumped the flopped over circuit board. The image went black, and a small, high pitched, vaguely mechanical sound started emanating from the player. I turned it off and turned it back on after inspecting the board, and now all I get it the whine, and a black screen that, after a few seconds, flickers blue and red, as if the signal is out of sync, then, after a few more seconds, goes back to the black screen.

I tried putting a genesis game into the module, but I get similar results. The screen just shows a black image with a few red and white pixels intermittently on the screen, and nothing else.

I can't eject the tray, and the lens mechanism is still hoisted into place and won't move. I fear the worst! Can anyone help me?

[omnedon]

If you are lucky, it's just mechanical. Sounds like the tray eject mechanism is out of it's alignmant. I'm not famiiiar with the laseractive, so I have no tips on what to try. Most mechanisms are very fussy about what's where at what time to eject properly.

The weird screen stuff doesn't sound good, but who knows, it could be related to the eject issue. *crosses fingers*

[chadtower]

Unfortunately, it sounds like when he bumped the pcb it contacted something and shorted. I'm thinking he did both things mentioned here. What a bummer to wreck such a great piece of hardware...

Just another reason not to mess with electronics while they're powered up.

[omnedon]

Maybe just maybe it is designed to reset on eject, and with everything out of alignment, it could be stuck in "reset" mode.

Or chadtower is right.

[Anonymous]

I'm 90% sure its not mechanical. I've got the tray mechanisms down pat. In fact, I had disassembled and reassembled the entire tray assembly (for the second time), and was in the process of testing the lens mechanism (which uses the same gear set as the tray to be raised/lowered) when this happened. This requires the system to be on at least a a couple of times to 'activate' either the tray or the lens mech.

My first thought was that I completed a circuit that wasn't supposed to be, but I don't see how that could have happened since the board was bumped by a non-conducting surface. Perhaps it contacted with the chassis. Grr, and I finally found a reasonably priced replacement remote for it, too!

[chadtower]

Maybe just maybe it is designed to reset on eject, and with everything out of alignment, it could be stuck in "reset" mode.

That's a possibility... it does seem to have its own software that it runs through. It's kind of a hierarchy... first it seems to check for the presence of a module, then to see if the module has a cart in it, then if there is a CD that uses the module, then if there is either an audio cd or a laserdisc... so possibly you're right about it doing some type of firmware action that it can't complete because it's waiting on a hardware action.

EDIT: BTW, my ordering of the checks may be off, but the concept is correct since that's what mine does.