Problem with burned cd games.

That was caused by warped rails on early models. Not from cdrs. Though as cdrs were often a little more difficult to read, you would notice it on cdrs.

 

This may be a good idea if you properly refurb it. The machine was made a long time ago. It may have had heavy use before you got it. It may need a new laser assembly. Or you could need to lubricate the rails or clean the lens.

 

I've also got to say that I've never bought the argument that using CD-Rs can "damage the laser" - simply because I've never seen a optical disc reader where the media reflectivity had any effect on the laser diode current - I can see it wearing the mechanics more (because the lower read amplitude causes a higher level of read errors), but cant see how it could damage the laser diode.

Since I'm bored, I'll do an experiment

Equipment:

Sony PlayStation SCPH-9000
Agilent U1252B DMM
Tektronix MSO4102B-L Scope
Tektronix P6500 500MHz scope probe

Experimental setup:

The APC circuit in the PlayStation was examined and the current sense resistor in the laser diode drive circuit identified - this consists of a 11R resistor, physically comprising a pair of 22R SMT resistors in parallel. One end is wired to the positive supply, and the other to the SMT transistor that acts as the output stage of the APC amplifier. Two fine wires were connected to the ends of the resistors and the inputs of the DMM, which was set to the 2V DC range. The output of the RF amplifier was located on a test point marked 'CL704', and a short wire stub soldered to this to allow the connection of the scope probe, which was set to x10 mode to minimize loading effects. The scope was set to 200mV/div (including the x10 probe).

Condition DMM Scope (p-p)
No Disc 580mV * About zero.
PSX CD 587mV 1.05V
HK Silver 587mV 0.95V
Audio CD 587mV 1.00V
Crap CD-R 587mV 0.70V
T-Y CD-R 587mV 1.00V
Azo CD-R 587mV 0.95V

* = Although the recorded current is lower, it would probably have reached the same value as all the other media if not for the face that the inability to obtain focus lock resulted in the laser being turned off before it had warmed up. With the other media, the voltage increased slowly over about a minute and was still at the indicated value 2 minutes later.

The higher value from the PSX CD is not an anomaly - I tried several different discs, and they all gave the same result. I also tried several different HK silver discs and audio CDs - and they all gave a playback signal level that was slightly lower than the original PSX CDs. The old Taiyo Yuden CD-R gave playback levels that were essentially the same as the pressed CDs (but still inferior to the original PSX CD) - this was a Cyanine dye formulation disk. The Azo CD-R was a Verbatim (I.E. Mitsubishi chemical) disc that was specifically marked "Azo". The crap CD-R was branded "Sony" but had a CMC magnetics media ID - it appears to use phthalocyanine dye.

Conclusions:

The type of disc in use has a significant effect on the recovered signal amplitude, and hence can be expected to impact the read error rate, but had no observable effect on the laser diode current, making it difficult to support any mechanism by which the use of low reflectivity media could have an adverse effect on optical pickup life.

Did I mention I was bored?

 

Its good to have some numbers to back up what I have been saying for years.

Its quite annoying what starts off as rumour gets repeated as fact.

So basically:

Buy good media, stop whining.

 

Yes, but they do have different properties to pressed cd's. It's very possible that with failing hardware you'll be able to reliably read a pressed cd but not a cd-r.

A CD will reflect any light, while a CDR will only reflect light in a tight band (what you'd get from a properly functioning laser).

 

I managed to snag 100 CD-Rs from a work auction. They're branded "Rimage Everest" and intended for business use and when I search for them they're often lumped in with Taiyo Yuden products.

Anyone have any experience with these discs?

 

best way today , get Yamaha CRW-F1 Burner ,650MB CDR or TDK Audio CDR , burn with audio master mode

the audio jump, because the cd sector too shot than laser clock. ( because 80's still is 650MB long)
the CRW-F1 audio master mode, it take 1.2sec long to write 1sec , it just fit look like old day cd burn