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Yes. But when you say "all settings", it means "all settings made in the Setup menu". Nothing else.

Exactly. That is the internal battery, with the purpose of being the backup power for the memory that holds the user settings (i.e., in the Setup menu) and the TOC data to be written to the disc.

In this thread, I guess nobody said anything like there was no internal battery. Where do you see such a statement?

Record/Play hours information (just as other settings in the Service Menu) are stored in a non volatile memory, thus not impacted by a dead internal battery cell. Imagine, if they were, all delicate laser settings etc. would "evaporate" on a power outage if the battery was dead. This would be a very bad design then. Congratulations on the good buy and the successful repair. Another great 930 saved.

The 320 is not an MDLP model. What you experience is normal for the SP-only decks. The first Sony full size MDLP decks were the x40 family (440/640/940), from 2000 or so. The 320 is from 1998, way before the MDLP hit the market.

You wrote BIOS recognised the HDD. This gives two pieces of information: 1) you attempted to use this machine in BIOS mode. Question: is it possible to change it to UEFI mode? Question 2: If it is, after changing to UEFI, will it detect the HDD just as well (some hints here)? 2) your hdd is alive (most probably). Question: how was it originally partitioned, MBR or GPT? Question 2: Do you have a capable partition utility, that can give a reliable information about your hdd (like BootIT NG, BootICE, or similar)? For ms windows environments the hdd must have a partitioning scheme that matches the used hw-to-sw interface system, i.e., BIOS-MBR or UEFI-GPT. More questions: - is your ultimate goal to restore your VAIO to its factory original state? Or are you OK with a fully working VAIO with MS W7 on it? Regarding the factory installed copy of the W7: I trust the device has the key (COA sticker) somewhere on the machine. This should allow reinstalling W7 by other means - see more here, or here. - have you tried to perform some low level tests on this hdd, to get an idea whether or not it is in fully good shape? See for example Hard Disk Sentinel, it can read the S.M.A.R.T. information off the hdd. - do you have a way to lift this hdd from the VAIO, and connect it to another PC? (I.e., using an USB-to SATA dongle, or simply connected internally in a desktop PC.) You can run then the standard W diagnostics and see how the hdd is. Also, you can back up data from the HDD, if that is a requirement.

Is this the same story as here? If it is, I would prefer keeping all related posts and all relevant information in one and only one topic. Can you please come back to that original topic?

That's no good news :-( . Definitely. Hopefully it is not a shorted/burnt I/O on the MCU. Do you have access to another 480/780/980, or one of the bookshelf units with the same drive (cannot recall the models, will check my notes)? A quick test by swapping the drives would tell us, if it is related to the BD board or the OP somehow. Without that, you can do the OP swap. Indeed. I tend to believe we face multiple issues here that force the MCU keeping the device in standby. Let's see if exchanging the OP brings any result.

Can you please check one thing, what happens: keep pushing AMS knob and Rec button together while plugging the AC cord. This should work even on a stuck-in-standby device, at least whenever I tried in the past it did work. Normally, it brings up the display/leds/buttons/knobs/remote test sequence.

Sad. At least we learned two things: 1) it is not the IR receiver chip and 2) it is not the VFD driver chip that keeps the deck in standby. We must look then elsewhere. I would turn to the OP now, but the fact you cannot enter Service mode is worrying me. You cannot really destroy your spare OP even with the settings for the present one, as long as you don't activate the higher laser power (recording), but it would be better to reset all settings in the setup menu prior to the OP exchange, then readjust everything step by step. Giving a chance to replacing the OP might bring your Service mode back, and if it does, it probably solves the main issue too. Cross our fingers. Just don't try anything else with the new OP except trying to switch the unit on. If success, we go from there.

The standby led not lit regardless you have the 3.3 Volts is strange at least. It is switched by the VFD driver chip (and supplied directly from the system 3.3V, the output of IC401). Do you probably have a display chip issue? To check this, you can try to disconnect the display section from the front panel board, together with the switches/IR/leds section - keep only the switches/encoder section connected via the ribbon cable to the main board. Plug the AC cord, and listen to the relay clicks. Hopefully you hear two. Then insert a disc to see if the deck loads it in, and if the disc spins. If it does, you can eject it with the eject button (or, actually, you can try pushing the Play button too).

Now this is bad news :-( . That's not an issue really. It just keeps the settings made in the Setup menu (but has nothing to do with what is set in Service mode). You can desolder and remove that battery completely until you find a replacement, it has no effect on other functionality. Edit: oh yes, the battery is also needed for keeping the TOC information stored in the memory but not yet written back to the disc, if a power outage happens.

You may find some hints here - might or might not help.

That's good news. On the Hireens Boot CDs there used to be different hdd test apps, you may want to do some basic health checks before moving forward. Have you saved the MBR too? Maybe the VAIO recovery partition? If you did, you can restore the HDD to its "blank" state and run the recovery again. If you did not, still you can go through the old school way (partion, format, install windows, install device drivers, install programs, etc.). It will work but it will certainly not be the same as the factory preinstalled sw environment.

I am afraid this is a wrong direction. I read again the whole thread, and based on your posts: you do have the system 3.3V and it is OK, and the MCU is working, since you can enter Service Mode and step back and forth. I break my brain but I can only get back to here. I tend to believe this is not a problem you can catch with multimeter/oscilloscope. If the MCU is working, power rails are OK, then it is probably the MCU that keeps the device in standby for a reason. I am not sure if you have already tried to replace the OP, or if you have tried to disable the shutdown signal momentarily, or if you have tried to reset the settings in the Service menu, or if you have already checked the IR receiver circuit - just to exclude those possibilities too.

Great to see you back Petter, and that you have not yet given up. Good point cleaning the board, thus removing potential capacitive "bridges". Sony not cleaning these boards though is not necessarily a shortcut or ignorance - actually, can be quite the contrary. It all depends on the fluxes used. There are so called "no-clean" fluxes that do not require a cleaning step after soldering, and are widely used in the electronics mass production. Matter of fact, the industry has moved away from the water soluble fluxes on purpose for example, for several reasonable considerations. Nevertheless, cleaning the board is not "counteradvised" (unless a protective layer is required for uncovered copper leads, pads, or other areas). How and where did you measure it? On the assembled machine, or on the standalone maind board without anything else attached, or on the PSU board without anything attached? The pure DC resistance of a power rail to ground might not give a reasonable information, unless the figure is down somewhere in the few ohms (close to shortcut) range. This 66 ohms to ground means 50 mA current on 3.3 Volts, that itself can be an acceptable figure, given how many IC-s are connected to this power rail. Even just the MCU itself can draw around 25...30 mA, and there are many others, like the VFD driver, the USB controller, the IR receiver, etc. A counter check can tell you, whether or not your 3.3V rail is impacted: if the rail's DC volltage is spot on under normal condition, then probably there is no issue there. Having sad that, since you are in this machine so deep, I would recommend to take a "tour" around with an ESR meter, checking the filter caps at first. Although you might be tired of the different ideas, might be worth keep trying. I think Stephen has already suggested disconnecting the USB board. Next, if you can desolder the IR chip. Or just disconnect the front panels' switches/leds/IR piece (yes, the Standby button is on it too, as well a the IR receiver, so the only means to switch the machine on is by inserting a disc, to see if it accepts it). I know you tried nearly everything, still you may want to take a quick look at this list (that is not exhaustive, just a raw check list for the C13/DiscError issue), to see that nothing is left out. Some causes can be common in both failures. We are fully behind you, and waiting for your breakthru - might bring some new information to this weird stuck-in-standby situation.

I fully agree. Which MD disc sounds better is a similar question to which make of a computer hard drive (or flash memory) sounds better - when playing an audio material stored on them in a digital format. They all must sound the same ... On the disc there are only digital 0-s and 1-s stored, and the ATRAC DSP chip does the conversion before the data is written to (any) disc. In other words, the device does not know, what make of an MD disc it shall write to. (Well, it actually does, in case, as the lead in area can contain such information, but that has nothing to do with sound quality.) Manufacturing quality, longevity, durability, reliability, even "look-and-feel" might be valid bases for comparison, but not the sound quality itself. I mean, excluding where sound quality is impacted by unreadable (or misread) bits from the media - that is rather related to those above. My personal preference: Sony Premium, TDK MD-RXG, 60 and 74 min. only, and black shells only (don't ask about this last one :-) ).

With all due respect to the author and also bluecrab, I honestly do not recommend this "solution''. Regardless I see that several people reported this working. Here is why: - first of all stripping an MD device and especially an MDM-3 drive to this depth carries a lot more risk (of damaging someting else) than the hoped fix. See all the topics here with XY machine stuck in Standby, or C13 error, etc., not mentioning possible physical damages, misaligned, bent or even broken parts. - what happens here is that the "fix" stresses that very switch beyond its default ON position. The used areas of the contacts within the switch are oxidizing over time, and pushing the slider a little forward may help it reaching a cleaner, unused bit on the contacts, thus virtually solving the no contact problem. Putting such a stress on an SMD switch is a definite no-no, because in worst case it can break the switch or rip it off the PCB. - these symptoms are related (well, not always, see below) to the different position switches of the drive, not only this particular one. There are about six similar of them, and all has to be taken care of, properly. By "porperly" I mean addressing the original cause, that is the dirty or oxidized contacts. The only way to do it is by a) replacing those switches with new ones (rare and expensive stuff, plus require delicate soldering work), or b) opening up the switches and cleaning the contacts (very small parts, soldered down, high risk of breaking or losing those tiny bits and pieces inside). - I have repaired a few dozens of 510 (or equivalent 500, 320, S39, S38, all with the MDM-3 drive), and my experience is that only a certain part of the "non-working" devices could be successfully fixed by cleaning/lubricating the switches, the rest related to something else. I don't want to look like the "smartest guy", all this I wrote above are my personal findings, and I have to mention Jim Hoggart here, the real pro person when it comes to repairing MD devices, I learned incredibly lot from his posts on this forum.

There is a few things we should distinguish here: 1./ The sound quality output from the D/A converter of an MD device vs. the sound quality of the same audio material recorded via ATRAC, on the same device ATRAC is a lossy audio format by design, and even being technically superior to other lossy formats, still there can be audible differences to the original audio, plus there is a significant "subjectiveness" factor. 2./ Tidal offers different audio quality options Only the highest one ("Master") has better than CD quality. Recording to MD from such 24 bit master files should yes, sound theoretically better than recording to MD from a CD quality source. Their second best option ("HiFi") is exactly the CD quality, and the remaining two ("High" and "Normal") are lossy, so these are probably out of question in this context.

- you can take advantage of 20 or 24 bit, if you have such sources - you can do oversampling from 16 bit sources (CD for instance) - you can make recordings with higher dynamic range than of a CD (using a capable microphone, for example) To hear the difference though you would need a very good quality sound system (amplifiers and loudspeakers), as well as an acoustically proper environment (=listening room). Theoretically, human ear has a ~140 dB dynamic range, but the real perception is influenced by many factors.

You can also find the same part on other machines from the period, such as the SCD-XB940 Super Audio CD player, should you want to extend your search.

I would first check total rec/play hours in Service mode, then go for the less used drive mechanism, even if it requires transplanting the OWH. Dim displays sometimes are just caused by a thin layer mixed from dust and damp (and/or cigarette smoke). This layer can be both on the inside of red plastic window and the glass surface of the display. Cleaning both with some isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber cloth can make a "miracle" in such a case. Buttons being temperamental can root from the same cause, like smoke and dust stuck onto their contacts, or when this "mix" oxidized the contacts. Contact sprays can clean and lubricate them nicely (see for example the Kontakt 60, Kontakt WL, Kontakt 61 family here). ------- Edit: Promised some photos - here are two examples. Silly me, I did not take pictures of those VFD-s in operation, before and after the cleaning - you can only rely on my word that the VFD-s' brightness did improve.

I also wanted to ask how really the playback sounds? Does it have to do with the pitch/speed, or, it has to do with the audible frequency range? (I am not sure I ever heard a chipmunk singing) The reason I am asking is because years ago I had a very strange case. (I know, I know ... I am coming again with my weird stories ...) I was working on an old and badly beaten 510. I managed to fix practically everything, and the deck seemed working just like new. Then I connected it to an amp... and got astonished. All what I heard was a thin, somewhat distorted voice, missing all the basses, some of the low mids, and partly the high frequencies too. Sounded like an old transistor pocket radio (or worse). I was sure it had nothing to do with the digital part of the deck, so I went on poking around in the analogue section. And found this (do take a close look on the photos): The solder joints of the RCA connectors were cracked. (We call it "cold solder", I am not sure what is the proper English expression for this. It happens when the leads to be soldered were not clean, or were oxidized, or the solder was not hot enough, or there was insufficient flux during the process, etc., resulting a bad solder joint, that cracks over time. Although the RCA sockets are mounted on the back plate with a screw, still the central pins have some degrees of freedom to move back and forth in the plastic centre when plugging/unplugging a cable, and that can speed up cracking the solder joint.) After resoldering, the sound became normal again:

The stl file you are looking for is still available here, see Kris01's post above.

This LPM was an experimental piece of kit, a very (I mean very) simple, "quick and dirty" design, for all the schematic I did was a quick sketch on the back of a used envelope. Then during the process of building it I made several changes "on the fly" (see the hole on the back of the shell for example, there has been a trimpot there once). Therefore, regrettably this circuit is not documented in a form that could be posted here, and I do not really plan reverse engineering it in the future. Instead, as I am already in the process of designing another DIY LPM, I will make that available here for those who are interested. (Actually two - one is an analogue meter like the LPM 8000/8001, while the other one will be a cool :-) "go/no-go" quick test device, with an LED scale). One note: all those who plan to (build and) use an LPM, please do not forget: having just the LPM itself is not enough for correct laser power adjustments. You must have the respective test jig too, in order to measure the IOP. Therefore, in the meantime, you may also want to go for making your test jigs.