MZ-M100 problem

[laidler]

Hey guys, I just bought a good condition used MZ-M100 on Ebay, it arrived today and it seems to work fine and sounds good, but there's one problem. OK, first of all usable space is only 961.9MB (where did the rest of the freekin' 39.1MB go?), which I can live with, but there's a snag. When transferring PCM tracks from SonicStage 4.2, the machine acts funny. When I get just past 800MB of music on the disc, the Walkman gets into some form of continuous loop and gets stuck, it sounds as though the disc keeps spinning and the laser is trying to come off it's track. I either have to pull all power and switch it back on to get the disc back then clean up what was already in there, or let it run forever and a day then it says the disc needs to be reinitialized and wiped. What is going on here? Has anyone else with an M100 or RH910 come across the same thing? Do the RH1 and M200 pull this stunt as well? On the most part it works great, but seems to have a glitch. I'll cry if I have to send this thing off to be serviced. HELP PLEASE! As always any and all input is appreciated. Thanks guys, James.

[vsherry]

Hey guys, I just bought a good condition used MZ-M100 on Ebay, it arrived today and it seems to work fine and sounds good, but there's one problem. OK, first of all usable space is only 961.9MB (where did the rest of the freekin' 39.1MB go?), which I can live with, but there's a snag. When transferring PCM tracks from SonicStage 4.2, the machine acts funny. When I get just past 800MB of music on the disc, the Walkman gets into some form of continuous loop and gets stuck, it sounds as though the disc keeps spinning and the laser is trying to come off it's track. I either have to pull all power and switch it back on to get the disc back then clean up what was already in there, or let it run forever and a day then it says the disc needs to be reinitialized and wiped. What is going on here? Has anyone else with an M100 or RH910 come across the same thing? Do the RH1 and M200 pull this stunt as well? On the most part it works great, but seems to have a glitch. I'll cry if I have to send this thing off to be serviced. HELP PLEASE! As always any and all input is appreciated. Thanks guys, James.

I wouldn't send it to be serviced. I'd return the faulty merchandise to the seller.

[sfbp]

When transferring PCM tracks from SonicStage 4.2, the machine acts funny. When I get just past 800MB of music on the disc, the Walkman gets into some form of continuous loop and gets stuck, it sounds as though the disc keeps spinning and the laser is trying to come off it's track. I either have to pull all power and switch it back on to get the disc back then clean up what was already in there, or let it run forever and a day then it says the disc needs to be reinitialized and wiped. What is going on here?

I've never actually tried copying PCM **to** a 1GB disk. Whilst I can see it should be possible, I can see that Sony didn't think anyone would actually do that. (just me being ornery here).

1. Have you tried filling up the disk some other way, eg with 256k bitrate songs?

2. Have you tried adding songs one at a time filling it up from (say) 650 MB and working forwards. Does it always crash in the same exact spot?

3. Have you tried some different media? (other 1GB disks)

4. Have you tried some 80m media, too? (if this is no problem this may indicate some sort of alignment or adjustment methinks, as the technology for those is essentially independent of the 1GB disks).

5. Finally - every HiMD player warns you (on the back cover) about long transfers without enough power. Have you tried doing it with a reconditioned battery? Have you tried leaving it plugged into the mains adapter during transfer?

Hope this helps

Stephen

[laidler]

OK guys, I tried the whole one at a time thing early on, also, it's USB bus powered so power isn't an issue. I have however more or less filled up two TDK 74 minute discs with PCM close to capacity and no problem. As far as I can tell on Hi-MD discs, of which I've so far used three, it seems to crash just after 800MB, looks about the 830 mark or thereabouts. The unit works and works well, it's just up to a certain point with the Hi-MD discs. Could it be something off with the laser track? But then wouldn't that mean that the unit wouldn't otherwise work as well? Perhaps the three out of the five new discs I have might be from a bad lot. I still would like to know what the Hell happened to that 39.1MB on the disc, these things should be just like CDs, only one format, not used in more than one type of drive, sheesh. Anyway, thanks guys, James.

[sfbp]

tush, tush! You didn't read my other reply. There's no missing 39.1 it's just nomenclature.

It is beginning to sound like some sort of laser power issue. Avrin is your best expert for that, and I am sure he will leap in here to help shortly, if I am even halfway right.

The reason there are so many formats is that choice is good. You can pick which one you want for the particular application. I wouldn't be without PCM for live recordings. But I rarely need better than LP2 for portable or even armchair listening. And LP4 will do fine for a lot of broadcast material.

[laidler]

Funny thing, my dad suggested laser power since the alignment seems to be fine hence the darn thing working, but why would it run out of power after a certain point on the disc? I thought power would be uniform throughout the thing. If that is the case what must be done? Send it to Sony and have a new laser put in? How much would that cost? I bought the thing for $160 counting shipping, so would it amount to the equivalent of buying a new $400 MZ-RH1/M200? Boy do I feel like a dunce. I'd try putting a new one in but I don't know if my technical skills are quite up to par. Guess I should be looking for service manuals for this thing. Oh well, live and learn, hindsight and all of that. Thanks for the input guys, James.

[sfbp]

I mean that there is a setting for the LP in the NVRAM. Cool your heels, and I am sure the right advice will be forthcoming. Furthermore I believe there are separate settings for the 1GB disks and the regular disks, because the 1GB use a unique technology (DWDD) that isn't needed by the others.

It makes sense to me that some parts of the disk might require more power than other parts (minor variations but enough to screw things up). All disk technologies have this problem, the density can vary quite a bit between the middle and the edges. You don't want to keep changing the length of a track for every single track, so some are necessarily a bit more crowded than others. You can change it a bit (more per track as you go towards the edge), but there may be problems when the laser has to transform slightly bigger chunks of disk (for the same amount of data) as it goes further from the spindle. I sorta doubt anything is actually warped as you are able to fill the 80m disks, which are physically the same dimensions.

[laidler]

I guess it makes sense, a physically different format like the Hi-MD as opposed to regular MD would bring laser power into play. So how do I fix it then? Or do I contact the seller and politely ask if I can return it for my money back? Personally, I do love this little unit, but I want as much out of it as I can get, but I must admit it was a rude awakening to not have a full gig on the disc like it would be with a CD having 650 to 700MB, I know those have that actual capacity since I've filled them. If I were to try to put a new laser in, could it be done? And if so, where would I get them and how much are they? I'll mention the laser thing to the seller, see what he says. Thanks guys, James.

[sfbp]

It's probably an adjustment issue.

And... I don't care about you filling up 80m disks with PCM, what I would like to know is can you fill up a 1GB disk with 256kbps (HiSP) songs?

[laidler]

Guess I could give it a whirl, but I'm guessing to the recorder it's all data, so it might do the same thing with whatever I put on there. And what adjustment would I have to make it that's the issue? How would I do that? I will try the mp3 thing tomorrow. Thank you for the suggestion, James.

[sfbp]

Service mode on the minidisc consists of poking apparently arbitrary numbers into NVram. This could render the unit completely inoperable, so is not to be undertaken without LOTS of research and great care. I think Avrin probably has the necessary knowledge.

[laidler]

Right, I went online to Sony and they quoted me 99 dollars for sending it in and having it serviced and replaced. Think I'll just return it to the seller if it's still an option. It likely is a laser which needs more power, and I haven't the skills for fixing it, so I'll just scratch the whole thing. Thanks for your comments and advice guys, I'll just send it back and sell the discs I bought and buy one of those PCM-M10s which use micro SD cards. Take care guys, James.

[sfbp]

Hold your horses, James.

I am having the same problem with my apparently MINT RH910. Let's see if it can be solved. The RH910 is the same as the M10 but not so different from the M100.

More later.

OK - here's what I have observed. Simply doing optical in to Hi-MD. Two different scenarios, same data rate 256kbps (Hi-SP). The RH910 was plugged into the standard Sony 3V adapter during recording, so we can be reasonably sure this isn't a power supply problem.

In the first case (which I repeated with two different 1GB disks) I found that the recording had dropouts in it, and whilst it could be partially played, it absolutely refused to upload anything I had recorded except the very shortest track (2-3 minutes). In addition, when "System File Writing" instead of taking 10-20 seconds (AFTER the "data save" phase) it took 2-5 minutes, ie forever! The resulting disk(s) could not be uploaded using ANY machine I possess (I tried RH1, NH700 and NH900 just to be thorough). Several times I got the famous "Format Disk" error, which I sidestepped by removing the disk from the unit immediately.

Upload using the same RH910 from a PCM microphone recording of something previously recorded on an RH1 worked just fine. It was rather suspiciously slow, though.

In the second case, I merely substituted a blank 80m disk and recorded on that using the RH910 at Hi-SP also. That uploaded without problems.

So what I am thinking is the disk is not being written properly when recording. Presumably this is a matter of increasing the laser power. (or could it indeed be decreasing it?!?!?)

Avrin mentioned performing something like this adjustment with his RH1, many moons ago; I wonder if he or someone else could give us a clue. If I succeed, you can then try it too.

Stephen

Edited February 13, 2010 by sfbp

[laidler]

I liked your hold your horses comment, but the seller beat me to it. He offered me a 50 dollar partial refund, so I'm going to put that towards sending it to Sony to have it serviced, though, if you've come across a similar problem, might be better off selling it for 100 bucks or something. Anyway, from my own research the RH910 is the same as the M100, like the M200 and RH1 are the same exact machine, just different aesthetics and a microphone package. Anyway, if you try out what I was doing, which was transferring PCM to the unit using SonicStage, you might get the same thing as I. When mine went crazy with the spinning and lost laser I also unplugged it, put power back in to eject the disc, then either slowly built on what I had compiled on the disc or just wiped the whole thing and started again. Also, your suggestion of filling a disc with a bunch of other formats and bit rates, no offense, but data is data is data, it's all written the same way, it's all ones and zeros, and if I wanted to put a bunch of mp3s of a player I'd have bought an i pod or Zune or Walkman mp3 player, not an expensive Hi-MD recorder for uncompressed CD quality PCM. I bought it for that purpose, and I expect the damn thing to work. Anyone here actually had experience with Sony's service center and actually gotten their unit back in working order? Seems to be a rather simple fix, either replace the laser or what ever little thing is there. But if they really are the idiots I've heard them to be, then where the heck else can I have this thing fixed? I may not be an idiot but I know enough to realize I can NOT fix this myself. Please pardon my impatience and frustration if it has bled through a little too much here. As always I appreciate any and all comments. Thank you, James.

[sfbp]

I don't have a laser power meter. But I think that settings 0211 through 0216 (pages 18 and 19 of the service manual, available on this site) have to be the problem. That's likely all Sony will do for its $99, change the settings.

Avrin had reported that the laser power for single layer disks (ie non-1GB) had been the difficulty (too high) on his RH1. We appear to have the opposite problem, 80m works fine but the 1GB (HiMD3 in Sony speak) are failing. Ir could be too low or too high.

Note: the M100 is the same as the RH10, the M10 is the same as the RH910. All came out about the same time, but yours has an OLED display, mine a common-or-garden LCD.

[laidler]

I see, so the basic working insides, display type aside are still the same? Badge engineering at work there I guess, thanks Sony, you pirates. A local guitar center has an open box MZ-10 there for 169, I've been thinking of trying it out, of course I'm going to ask first about return policies. If you think it's just a matter of making an adjustment in the service mode I'm happy to try it. Let's hope Mr. Fumble Finger, that is I, don't bollox things up. If it works I'll let you know,and let me know if you have any luck with yours Stephen. Good luck, James. BTW, where is that service manual? Bit dizzy trying to find it here.

[sfbp]

where is that service manual? Bit dizzy trying to find it here.

yours:

http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/service/MZ_RH10_sm.pdf

and mine:

http://minidisc.org/manuals/sony/service/MZ-RH910_sm.pdf

[sfbp]

Jim,

I just figured out how to fix the problem we both seemed to have (your symptoms were almost identical to mine). After months of puzzling over it, the solution was very simple - reduce the main Laser READ power (both measurements, ref and actual) by one notch. In my case 14->13 and 12->11 (Hex as it happens but who cares?).

I learned this trick because of an experience with a deck that had somewhat similar problems - could write perfectly but not read what it had just written.

Stephen

note: "reducing the laser power" is actually a mis-description. The numbers in question purport to measure the output of the laser under specified test conditions. So presumably LOWERING the measured numbers means the circuitry will compensate by RAISING the output power a little bit when accessing the disk surface. What we have done is to turn up the gain.

[sfbp]

My sincere apologies for the random rubbish I wrote in the post which followed #18 (and subsequently deleted) and suggest you ignore it. Another day of experimentation (and finally checking against the values in my NH700) proved that all the values 9111 9112 9113 9114 all have to be reduced together as they all are functions of decreased laser power.

IOW, the way to make the circuitry work is to cut back the laser power measured, so that the actual strength sent to the machine is higher, making the unit completely operable again.

Original values:

9111 = 14, 9112 = 12, 9113 = 91, 9114 = A9

Final, working values

9111 = 11, 9112 = 0F, 9113 = 84, 9114 = 9F (these are the exact values in the NH700). If you do the math you will see these are about 15% smaller on average. The Docs say that the values for the first two measurements need to be within tolerance by 19.2% and 18.2% respectively, the 9113 by 12% and it completely fails to mention 9114. So it makes sense that reducing them all by 15% should be right in the ballpark to take them from not working to working

I note in passing that all the embarrassing, nail-biting (is it going to crash?) delays are gone, and the unit absolutely shrieks along, as it should.

I'm actually guessing the whole line was misadjusted, this seems to have been a common enough complaint that we have heard about it in different guises from a number of people.

Stephen

[sfbp]

Sorry for the triple-posting. But I am reasonably sure I fixed this now. Seems like 9114 needs to be set to the value of 9113 + 15%. But I still don't know how to get these right without using a Laser Power Meter.

If 9114 is too high then 1GB disks will work but 80m disks will fail (at HiMD)

If 9114 is too low then 80m disks will work but 1GB disks will fail.

For mine at least, 9113 is always about 10-11 times 9111. But YMMV and you really really need to get a meter.

The good news is the alignment disk probably does the same thing I calculated by tedious experiment. Since I cannot verify (no alignment disks available) this is pure speculation.

Happy New Year.

Stephen