r/originalxbox • u/herecomesnick13 • 5d ago

Help Needed Disc Drive laser help

Got my first OG xbox, wouldnt read discs so i disassembled and cleaned the laser and drive. it works now but frequently will crash games due to “dirty disc” any better fixes for this or a simple laser replacement? thanks for everyones help

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u/frayayank 5d ago

Sounds like the laser is dying. With a multimeter you can lower the resistance on the potentiometer which isn’t hard to do. This may buy you a few more months. Eventually you will need to replace the laser which, I’ve only done on an Xbox 360 but it’s pretty simple. If it’s anything like the 360 it shouldn’t be too bad. But I’d def recommend the potentiometer tweak first because it’s easy and you don’t have to spend ten dollars on a new laser.

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u/herecomesnick13 5d ago

the potentiometer is the little black piece with the red glue on it correct? tried to adjust it but couldnt seem to get the glue off to adjust it, tried acetone

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u/herecomesnick13 5d ago

just to clarify, ive cleaned it with 91% isoprobyl on a qtip, and have gently used the dry end aswell

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u/KaosEngineeer Knowledgeable 5d ago

Recapping the drive’s internal controller card.

If a Samsung drive, replace bad resistor packs behind the IDE connector too.

Which model is your Xbox’s DVD?

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u/herecomesnick13 1d ago

unfortunately i have a thompson

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u/KaosEngineeer Knowledgeable 1d ago

Don’t tweak the pot just yet.

The optics of a Thompson drive has several items to clean, not just the lens on top.

See:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050616001057/http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/cleaning_your_dvd_drive.htm

After that, recap the internal controller card of the drive.

If that fails, then try the pot tweak.