CD lens Repair question

[Punkindonut345]

Hello, I have a rather cheap stereo (200$) and I have a very novice question.
Firstly the unit is the Sony MHC-GX45

http://esupport.sony.com/perl/model-news.pl?mdl=MHCGX45

I left for the weekend with a perfectly fine working cd player. It's never given me problems in the year that i've had it. When i returned sunday night none of my new cd's wanted to play properly. The system wasn't able to read the albums consistently. After several attempts i have been able to get the albums to play. Now when i put albums in, they are read coreectly and play correctly about 60% of the time. The other instances the system simply fails to recognize a disc.
I am debating bringing it in to best buy for some mainentence. It was originally 250$, a Sony upper end home "shelf" system. Nothing to fancy here. However, i am not sure its worth the money to bring it in to be fixed if its something i can do myself. Repair quotes have all run at about at least 150$ so i could basically buy a whole new cheap unit for 200. For this reason i really do not want to send it in anyplace unless its a considerable deal.

I've heard that the usual cause of this problem is due to the lens arm being offset or something. And that i just need to simply open the case and readjust this lens arm with the proper circuit. Im not totally sure on the procedure. Can anyone direct me to some links, offer advice, diagnosis?

What can i do? Anyone else with similar problems? I really dont want to give up on the system, its NEVER given problems before just now so im sure its not dead yet, but im hoping its a minor fix.

I stumbled across this site, but im not sure if this is the problem
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/3/24/45212/6874

Please be patient here gentlemen, this is not my forte but I really need some advice. This stereo is to young to be dead already.

 

[Mort Corey]

The second link sure sounds like your problem (and solution) to me. $150 for someone to repair your unit does sound a little high but anything under $100 is unlikely. It's a toss-up. Since it's out of warranty, you have nothing to lose by trying the pot adjustment described in the article and it's likely that's all any repair shop would be able to do anyway.

Good luck

Mort

 

[hopjohn]

Try unplugging your player for around a half an hour then plugging it back in and see if this helps. I don't have any scientific explanation for why this sometimes works (some have said static charge build up???, but it could be any of a number of things) and see if the discs will play afterward. If not, it will have cost you nothing to try.

As you've previously stated since your player is relatively inexpensive, having it fixed might not be cost effective.

 

[tbewick]

Though not recommended by some manufacturers, you could try using one of those CD lens cleaners as a last resort.

I'm sure you could get a good quality second hand unit for $150. For that much, it's not worth repairing.

 

[j_garcia]

If it's out of warranty, I'd just pop it open and take a look at the lens. I wouldn't recommend paying $150 or $100 for someone else to pop it open, blow off the lens and close it back up if that's all it is. If you aren't comfortable doing repair work of that nature, I wouldn't try to realign the head manually.

I had something like that happen before with a Marantz CD player, and they actually gave me a replacement unit instead (was still under warranty).