Gamecube disc read problems

Greatsaintlouis · 03-20-2004

I got a Gamecube about a week back from a friend's brother, who stated that the thing wouldn't work on account of disc read errors. I thought I might be able to do something with it, so I brought it home, opened it up with the fun melted pen trick, and gave it a much-needed blasting with some compressed air. I put the thing back together, bummed some leads and a controller from a friend, and tested it out with the Rogue Squadron 3 demo disc I had snagged off of eBay a while ago. It worked perfect.

Today I went out and bought a controller of my own, an A/C power supply, a memory card, and a used copy of Metroid Prime. I got back, set everything up, and went to work checking out the one Metroid game I hadn't played. 20 minutes into gameplay, I was greeted with, "The Game Disc could not be read. Please read the Nintendo GameCube Instruction Booklet for more information." I opened the lid, cleaned off some slight smudges that could have caused a read error, and was able to continue playing. For 5 minutes. Opening the lid, removing and then reinserting the disc grants another few minutes of gameplay, depending on if the GC needs to load data or not. It just seems like a few seconds after the disc finishes loading data, it stops working. Does anyone have any thoughts or tips on this, or should I just hawk the thing as a "semi-working gamecube" on eBay?

halo · 03-21-2004

Try rubbing the lens with alcohol to see if that has any effect.

**marko33** · 03-21-2004

Ur cube is busted.. best to buy a new one... :( or it should have been sent to nintendo for repair

Greatsaintlouis · 03-21-2004

Nintendo charges out the arse for repairs - It's seriously cheaper to buy a brand spanking new one. I've seen a few guides online that suggest delving into the system's innards and adjusting a potentiometer, much like people did on first-gen Playstation systems when the laser would start to go. I'll give that a shot I think, and if it doesn't work and unless someone has a better idea, I'll probably sell it on eBay for parts, unless anyone here wants it.

Oh, and I've done the lens cleaning thing, and that doesn't help much either, but thanks.

**Tachikoma** · 03-22-2004

If it is the case of it being totally duff. I wouldnt mind taking the mobo off your hands.

**A. Snow** · 03-22-2004

There is the old trick of buying a new Gamecube and doing the old swap and refund. I don't indorse this method though.

AntiPasta · 03-22-2004

Nintendo charges out the arse for repairs

Hey, you suddenly moved to the UK or did all the British board members brainwash you? :smt033

Greatsaintlouis · 03-22-2004

Originally Posted by Antipasta

Hey, you suddenly moved to the UK or did all the British board members brainwash you?

Hmm, now that I think about it, I have been saying that quite regularly, both on- and offline. I think I use it because here it sounds a bit less dirty than just saying ass? :smt043

**belokk** · 03-22-2004

hey Greatsaintlouis there is an easy way to fix this problem, i do it all time. if you can get your hands on nintendo bits to open the gc, then your good. once inside the gc, take out all the screews holding down the g.o.d. reader. then just pull it up off the connector to the mobo. once this is done, turn it over and there will be 6-8 screws tat is holding the metal plate on to the base of the reader. unscrew them and you should see the g.o.s controlelr mobo undereither. look for a silver screw hold. this is the pot ajuster to the laser. tturn it counter clock wise just a little. re assembly and see if it works, if not, turn it little be little until the games start to work again. this is a very common problem on gc's. your not allow, i fix these alot. :D

=belokk=

Greatsaintlouis · 03-23-2004

Thanks for the tip belokk - I actually found an article the other day online about the pot adjustment. I don't have a gamebit, but I used the melted pen trick to open the sucker and one second-degree plastic burn later, I had the pot adjusted and things sewn back up. Now it works a lot better, but I still got the error after about an hour into play, so I may tweak it a bit more. Out of curiousity, are there bad things that happen from adjusting the pot too much?

AntiPasta · 03-23-2004

supposedly it can burn out your laser because adjusting the pot allows too much current to flow through it. I never found any proof of that though.

Rorscach · 03-31-2004

Lest we forget that Metroid Prime isn't exactly the most stable GC game out there. By that, My brand spanking new cube crashed on MP several times till i realised one thing - take your time with the game. Don't rush. NEVER rush. Why? The game streams. Constantly.
I don't know much about technics, but I think the game simply needs to catch up with itself. And the faster you go, the lesser the chance you give your cube of doing so.

Then again, it could all be technical. :smt009

chickenflight · 03-31-2004

Well if you still have a warrenty on the system which I believe last for 1 year after purchase Nintendo does the repair for Free. I did this for my system about 6 months ago because it would stop reading discs after I just played a game on it. I had to wait like 30mins before it would want to read another disc. Well what I did is just sign up at the Nintendo website. Make a repair and if you are under warrenty it will be totaly free. You just need to pack the console in a box and call FedEx and tell them the instructions Nintendo gave you. The pickup will be free and so will the shipping. It only takes about 3 days for the item to come back and you will have a almost new system again. You should give it a shot I hear sometimes even after the warrenty ends they still do it. Well good luck :smt033

Greatsaintlouis · 03-31-2004

That might have worked, but sadly I have opened my system and adjusted the potentiometer on the underside of the laser board - if Nintendo couldn't tell that I had opened the case, I'm sure they'd be able to see that the laser power had been tinkered with. Plus, as I got the thing secondhand, I have no way of proving the warranty (which I voided by opening the thing in the first place). I did the pot adjustment which seems to have done the trick, and with this being a system just given to me (plus the fact that I'm not too crazy about the gamecube - I'm only out to play 5 or so games) I don't want to expend too much time or effort into getting it running flawlessly. But thanks for the suggestion!

Rorscach: I guess I didn't know about the constant streaming nature of Metroid - this could explain why I could run a demo disk in my gamecube for 30 minutes before it started acting up but Metroid began acting funny at 15...