blu-ray died

[+SpiceWare]

Was watching Assassination Classroom on my PS3 (no, I don't rip content that people lend me) when the playback froze in the middle of an episode. Ejected disk and looked for flaws but didn't find any so put it back in - the PS3 didn't recognize it. Tried some other blu-rays, none were recognized. Tried a DVD, it worked just fine.

Based on that the blue laser must have failed. Took apart my PS3 and identified the correct drive unit to order. Arrived yesterday and I installed it. Disk went in, but was not recognized. And now the disc won't eject.

 

Any ideas?

[carlsson]

Sorry for being off-topic, but I just thought of the old saying: Disk goes in, video comes out. Simple as that!

 

I hope someone else can be more helpful.

[+chue]

Just taking an educated guess, but it sounds like there could be multiple things wrong.

 

The disc not coming out is a sign that the drive was not put back together correctly. There could be multiple problems related to this.

 

1. There is a (disc?) sensor in there has a very delicate 2 wire cable, similar to this:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Sensor-Cable-Replacement-Repair/dp/B00B5Q9OMS

 

I would take apart the drive and make sure the above wire is ok. You may even try re-seating it at both ends. It is very delicate, so be careful.

 

2. Mechanically, there are little plastic gears and other parts in there that are used when inserting/ ejecting. You will need to be sure that all of these have been put back together correctly. Do a search on YouTube for drive dissassembly/ reassembly tutorials. You may see something in those videos that will help you.

 

While you have the drive apart you may as well:

 

1. re-seat the ribbon cables that you touched when you put in the new laser board.

2. manually eject your disc

 

If after you re-assemble the drive and find out that discs now insert/ eject, but are not recognized by the system then you have other potential issues:

 

1. The new laser assembly is bad

2. Your blu-ray drive main board is going bad. If this is the case you will have to buy a new drive and "marry" that to your system. Marrying involves jailbreaking the PS3 - you'd likely have to get someone to do it for you.

Edited April 6, 2018 by chue

[+SpiceWare]

Thanks, I'll take it back apart this weekend and try those. Yeah, that itty bitty wire was a pain.

 

Haven't played PS3 games in a long time, it's mostly used for watching discs loaned to me and streaming video like HBO Go. Apparently it's possible to get VLC to play back blu-ray discs, so if I can't get the PS3 working I'll most likely hand off the games to my nephews and just use VLC for watching discs.

[+SpiceWare]

Reseated all the cables and it's better!

 

[Rick Dangerous]

I have to ask, in the age of $80 Blu Ray players, why waste the optical drives lifespan on watching movies? Save that beast for gaming!!

[+SpiceWare]

I have to ask, in the age of $80 Blu Ray players, why waste the optical drives lifespan on watching movies? Save that beast for gaming!!

 

Until I got the Jak & Daxter remastered trilogy for $4.99, I hadn't played PS3 games in a long time(probably a few years). The PS3's been relegated to streaming content from Amazon Prime and HBO GO to my old HDTV that predates HDMI by a couple years. The TV has a single HiDef input via component video, and my surround sound receiver can switch between 2 component sources, so adding a dedicated streaming device or blu-ray player beyond my Mac mini DVR & PS3 isn't practical. The user interface on the PS3 works significantly better than accessing that content via browser on my mini. Main issue is the sites don't work well with the mini running in HiDPI mode, which results in the user interface being 960x540 (video content's still displayed at 1920x1080).

 

Also the PS3 part was only $14.90 and I only watch discs loaned to me, all of my personal DVDs and blu-ray discs get ripped and stored on my mini's Drobo. Originally I used Handbrake by itself for DVDs, but now I use the MakeMKV/Handbrake process spelled out in that blu-ray blog post for both DVDs and blu-rays.

[Lost Dragon]

My second PS3 died last night.

Admittedly it was a refurbished model i had bought off Sony to replace my original Phat...but both died due to the

blu ray drives no longer working.

 

This refurbished model was a Slim.

 

No plans to replace it, as no longer game on the PS3 after many years of solid gaming.

 

But it was annoying to have a second drive go.

[Lost Dragon]

I have to ask, in the age of $80 Blu Ray players, why waste the optical drives lifespan on watching movies? Save that beast for gaming!!

I was using my PS3 just as a movie player, now it's died, bought a stand alone movie player to replace it.

 

Friend of mine asked why i didn't just use my PS4?.

 

I gave him your answer (using £'s)

[Tempest]

My second PS3 died last night.

Admittedly it was a refurbished model i had bought off Sony to replace my original Phat...but both died due to the

blu ray drives no longer working.

 

Yep I had the same problem. My original Fat died and I sent it to Sony to be replaced (for a large fee) and the second one they sent me died a year and a half later. I ended up getting a slim and that seems to be holding up, but it still annoys me that I had to buy this system basically THREE times. The PS3 has a worse failure rate than the 360!

[Lost Dragon]

When my Phat died Sony (Uk) were pretty awful to deal with...very different to the Sony i had dealt with years before when my launch Playstation suffered THE FMV skipping and loading issues.

 

Basic attitude was not really our problem mate, but please send yours in and we will sell you a refurbished model..no, we don't offer a repair service..your dead machine will become someone else's refurb down the line.

 

My 360 which was an early Elite model, by comparison has never given me any issues with the optical drive, no red rings, E74 issues etc.

 

It withstood some epic gaming sessions on Fallout 3, Mass Effect Trilogy etc.

 

It's been a real trooper.

 

And yes.it wasn't cheap getting a replacement PS3 from Sony and i did expect a longer life from both.

 

Hence not buying a 3rd machine.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Lost Dragon

[Rocket Man]

My Drive hasn't worked properly for over a year now. I can get Minecraft to work (it will crash randomly), but it will play for hours at a time sometimes... I imagine this is because the disc doesn't get read very often.

 

What I don't understand is why replacing the drive is such a pain in the ass. Why do I have to "marry" the drive to the system? I need to get off my ass and figure this out, because I need to figure out which backup drives to purchase, for the future going forward. I'm sure this will happen again, even with a newer drive. I have a large Library so not having access to the BD is unacceptable going forward for the future.

 

For those of you, who have commented in this thread, saying you're not buying a replacement machine, or messing with replacing/fixing your broken BD... I wonder, are you planning on selling your collections because of this hardware failure?

[+chue]

Why do I have to "marry" the drive to the system?

You may or may not. Depends on which model PS3 you have.

 

Earlier PS3s link the drive's board to the PS3's motherboard. If you use a drive that is not "married" to the PS3, the PS3 is not able to read any discs.

 

Sony apparently didn't want end users to replace optical drives.

[Rocket Man]

You may or may not. Depends on which model PS3 you have.

 

Earlier PS3s link the drive's board to the PS3's motherboard. If you use a drive that is not "married" to the PS3, the PS3 is not able to read any discs.

 

Sony apparently didn't want end users to replace optical drives.

 

So goofy....

[marc.teeters]

Weird, used my ps3 every day up until about a year ago when I bought a ps4 for Skyrim. I never had any issues buy I was a little late to the party and started with a slim. I'm on my 4th Xbox 360 but I got a slim this time and it has held up much better. None of the others were red ring of death oddly enough, all disc drive Issues.

 

Sent from my Z965 using Tapatalk

[+wongojack]

It seems I now have a bad BD drive on my PS3 slim.  It simply will not read BDs anymore.  Makes a bunch of noises and sounds like it is going to eject, but doesn't play.  It has worked a few times when something put it in a good mood, but I think its done.

 

My quandry is that I only have a small amount of disc games that I even still want to play on the thing.  Wondering if I should just cut my losses and figure out a different way to play 3d dot game heroes before I die (hopefully) many years from now.

[Punisher5.0]

6 hours ago, wongojack said:

It seems I now have a bad BD drive on my PS3 slim.  It simply will not read BDs anymore.  Makes a bunch of noises and sounds like it is going to eject, but doesn't play.  It has worked a few times when something put it in a good mood, but I think its done.

 

My quandry is that I only have a small amount of disc games that I even still want to play on the thing.  Wondering if I should just cut my losses and figure out a different way to play 3d dot game heroes before I die (hopefully) many years from now.

Keep an eye out on ebay for a cheap Super Slim model. I got a super cheap untested one a few years ago and its been my daily driver since. They are reliable and quiet.

[Tempest]

This reminds me, I never did get my PS3 Fat fixed.  Is there a trustworthy soul that does that?

[+wongojack]

I took mine to FX Game Exchange here DFW.  I've used them a few times.  I believe they work by mail too.  Home | FX Games (fxvideogameexchange.com)

 

I watched a few videos, and I am confident that I could have replaced the laser myself, but I didn't want to.

[Tavi]

It is really easy to replace the blu-ray drive on a PS3 fat. You will spend more time on opening the case then removing and replacing the drive!

The important thing to remember is if it is a backwards compatible PS3 (like a CECHA01) you will have to swap the Blu-ray drive motherboards between the old and new drives as well or the PS3 will not recognize it. This is only a problem with the early PS3's though I am told, later Fat revisions you can just swap the entire drive with no issues.
 

 

[Classic Pac]

The one thing I learned when my died a few years ago. If your going to replace it yourself make sure you got the right model no.

[amiman99]

On 5/1/2022 at 11:02 AM, wongojack said:

It seems I now have a bad BD drive on my PS3 slim.  It simply will not read BDs anymore.  Makes a bunch of noises and sounds like it is going to eject, but doesn't play.  It has worked a few times when something put it in a good mood, but I think its done.

 

My quandry is that I only have a small amount of disc games that I even still want to play on the thing.  Wondering if I should just cut my losses and figure out a different way to play 3d dot game heroes before I die (hopefully) many years from now.

I know it's a late response, but PS3 emulation is pretty good now, so you could use your PC to play PS3 games. 

[+wongojack]

@amiman99It is already repaired and only costs like $60.  To play my PS3 disks on my computer, I'd have to buy a Blu Ray drive that I don't have which would likely cost about the same anyway (with shpping etc) - plus then I'd have to research PS3 emulation which I don't really want to do.

[Tempest]

14 minutes ago, wongojack said:

@amiman99It is already repaired and only costs like $60.  To play my PS3 disks on my computer, I'd have to buy a Blu Ray drive that I don't have which would likely cost about the same anyway (with shpping etc) - plus then I'd have to research PS3 emulation which I don't really want to do.

Did you just take it to a local game shop or something?

[+wongojack]

On 5/1/2022 at 8:00 PM, wongojack said:

I took mine to FX Game Exchange here DFW.  I've used them a few times.  I believe they work by mail too.  Home | FX Games (fxvideogameexchange.com)

 

I watched a few videos, and I am confident that I could have replaced the laser myself, but I didn't want to.

 

11 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Did you just take it to a local game shop or something?

I think they also do repairs by mail