Need Help With Sony DVP-C660. (1 Viewer)

[Edwin_M]

I've had a Sony 5-Disc DVD player model# DVP-C660 for three years now. I've never had a problem with it until now. Whenever I put in a disc it gives me a "No Disc" message. I have to open and close the disc tray up to ten times for it to finally accept the disc and play it. This is not a problem with my DVDs since this happens with every one I have. Is there anything I can do myself through the service menu without having to take it in to get repaired and be charged more than I paid for it?

 

[Legairre]

Edwin,
Seeing that yours will cost more to fix than it's worth, I'm in CT(Hartford area) and I have a C660 that I no longer use that's in perfect working order and just sitting on the shelf. I'd be happy to give you mine. All you'd have to do is pay for the shipping from CT to MA shouldn't be more that about $10 - $15. If you want it, just let me know.

 

[Jimi C]

wow..

 

[Edwin_M]

That is very kind of you but I don't think that will be necessary. I wouldn't want to deprive you of a good player that you could sell to somebody else for a good price. The problem with my player is something that might be fixed with a simple adjustment through the service menu, all I need to know is what to adjust. Does anybody out there have an idea?

 

[John S]

Your problem is almost certainly mechanical in nature. A service menu tweek is not going to make it load discs more reliably.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Wow, Legairre. How refreshing to come across such generosity. Impressive.

 

[Edwin_M]

I'm not entirely sure that this is an unfixable problem. Sometimes the player will just "fix itself" and work just fine for a week and then start to act up again. This just happened yesterday, every disc I put in loaded on it's first try and now today it's back to not being cooperative.

 

[Steve Berger]

It sounds like a bad spindle motor , they will react like this. Unfortunately it's part of the optic block assembly and not available by itself. If you can find a dead optic unit you can swap the motors. If you get lucky you might find a servicer who stockpiled all the optic blocks replaced in warranty just for this situation.(I've run out of salvaged blocks myself) Recently I've seen some new $30 optic blocks show up but these ideas only work if you can DIY. Even with a cheap block it would still be a $100-$150 repair to have a shop do the work.

 

[Edwin_M]

I have some news to report on this. I spent a while trying out some things to fix this problem and I discovered something. If I press the Open/Close button on the remote twice at the same time that the player gives me the No Disc message then the disc loads with no problems. I tried this many times now and it hasn't failed yet. Thoughts?

 

[Adil M]

Try pressing Title, Clear and Power On.

Then go to Menu option number 2 (autocalibrate).

Get a Single layer disk (silver) and a dual layer disk (gold).

 

[TomCW]

Do what Adil says. It has worked for myself and others, and you don't have anything to lose. Let us know of your success!
Tom

 

[Edwin_M]

I had done the autocalibration before but I tried it again last night but it still didn't work. While this may very well be a mechanical problem there is still a part of me that thinks this may be a programming problem instead of a hardware problem. It plays fine when I do what I stated above and also when I start up a disc again after I stopped it. After a disc has loaded then I can stop it and start it up again as many times as I want. I think that if this was a mechanical problem, like a bad spindle motor, then shouldn't I have trouble starting a disc up again? I think that if I can reset the player and clear it's memory and start it up again as if it was fresh from the box then the problem may be fixed. The trouble is I don't know how to do that or even if I can do that.

 

[Steve Berger]

The most common failure modes of a spindle motor are sticking (once it starts up it may work for quite a while) and a dead spot (as long as it doesn't stop on it it will work continually -- hit the dead spot and you will have to do something to jostle it off -- load,unload,retry,shake,etc).

In the shop , when a unit is acting up , I gently rotate the disk and see if it takes off and runs again. This will usually verify the condition of the motor.

 

[Adil M]

I think this is a weakening laser issue. Pop in Devil's Advocate movie w/ Pacino and Reeves.
This particular dvd has high reflectivity and usually works. Calibrate to a single layer dvd (not a flipper). Then calibrate a DL dvd that actually plays.
If this doesn't work just toss it.
Use it as a cd player.

 

[Edwin_M]

I was resigned to dumping this player and getting another one and this comes up.

I tried the option on the service menu "Mecha Aging", I don't know what it does exactly but I found out something interesting. Every disc loads when that option is activated . The tray opens and closes and spins and loads discs randomly and tells you what kind of disc it is, single layer or dual layer. This makes me think again that this still might not be a mechanical issue. Why does this happen? I try to load a disc under normal playing conditions and it rarely works and then I try this "Mecha Aging" and every disc loads within those conditions.

Can someone tell me what "Mecha Aging" is and why this might make my player work?

 

[Edwin_M]

Last night I opened up the player to take a look at and turned on the spindle motor through the Manual Operation then the servo control menus. The motor starts up immediately without any sticking. I tried it many times and it always started up without sticking or hesitating. I keep on thinking that the player's memory or software is corrupted or something. Possible mechanical problems keep on checking out Ok so that keeps leading me to a software problem. Thoughts?

 

[Edwin_M]

Any new thoughts on this?