N501 failing disc drive?

Cobra!

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I recently got an N501 model from eBay, and when it arrived, I noticed it struggled to read any discs, official or homebrew. It feels like I have to trick the machine into loading the games half the time, and most of the time when they start up, they don't load properly. (Tempest 3000 delays staring the music and sometimes plays the wrong track, for instance)

How would I open up the machine to clean the laser? and if that fails, I heard the drives aren't proprietary, and can be replaced with a drive from any other Samsung player from the time and it'll work the same?

Thanks in advance
 

midnight8

NUON & Atari VCS Forum Moderator
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so, not any drive will work I don't think, but there are some that will. I replaced my drive, here is the video. I placed links to the donor dvd player in my description on the video

 

Cobra!

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Yeah, I saw that video. It's a good backup plan for sure!

I want to try and clean the lens first. How would I do that on an N501?
 

midnight8

NUON & Atari VCS Forum Moderator
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Yeah, I saw that video. It's a good backup plan for sure!

I want to try and clean the lens first. How would I do that on an N501?
Yeah, I saw that video. It's a good backup plan for sure!

I want to try and clean the lens first. How would I do that on an N501?
yea, that was my video, I did that after cleaning didn't work. any cd cleaning disc will work
 

Cobra!

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I have one but that didn't seem to make any difference. I want to try physically getting the laser to clean it.
 
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