MDS JE530

[adept777]

Hi;

My MDS JE 530 (japan version) will not play any MDs, it tries to toc read for a good minute or two and then comes back saying c13 read error. Please help. Thanks!

[sfbp]

When was the last time it worked?

Has anyone worked on it recently?

[bluecrab]

Hi;

My MDS JE 530 (japan version) will not play any MDs, it tries to toc read for a good minute or two and then comes back saying c13 read error. Please help. Thanks!

Not the message you want to see. That's what I was getting on my JE480 and before that, JE510 - and, I am sorry to say, on a flaky JB940. I got the 480 and 940 working by taking the cover off the units, going into service mode, and kind of playing around with the mechanism that moves the head. I do not exactly recall if I physically touched the mechanism or if I was just pressing buttons and such - most likely the latter. The 480 eventually died anyway, the 940 when last checked was operable (it is boxed and not currently in use), while the 510 - that machine was just plain ornery and evil. Long since dead and gone, although there was a fairly well-known, but tricky, fix for it.

Although I don't want to out-and-out recommend doing what I did with the service mode, at this point you may want to get creative and at least take off the cover and watch what happens when the read failure occurs. I ought to mention that my 940 would occasionally come back to life, apparently spontaneously, if I unplugged it and left it that way for quite some time - weeks or months, usually. Then it would work for a while, until it didn't. Wish I could be more helpful. If you DO go into service mode, be careful.

[jim.hoggarth]

Hi. The usual cause of all C13 errors is the spindle motor not running up, for one of three reasons:

i) The motor is broke

ii) The motor drive chip on the BD board is broke

iii) The optics can't do an initial focus on the disc - the optical pickup is broke.

Fiddling with things can make the fault go, as can leaving it for hours/days. That would normally indicate a faulty spindle motor.

Jim

[bluecrab]

Hi. The usual cause of all C13 errors is the spindle motor not running up, for one of three reasons:

i) The motor is broke

ii) The motor drive chip on the BD board is broke

iii) The optics can't do an initial focus on the disc - the optical pickup is broke.

Fiddling with things can make the fault go, as can leaving it for hours/days. That would normally indicate a faulty spindle motor.

Jim

Don't know about you, Jim, but if I never see another C13 TOC Error message, I'd be just as happy. Thanks for including the "listening to now" part - I had never heard of Marina and the Diamonds, but now have checked out some sound clips and sounds good that way. We'll see if she/they hold up under further scrutiny.

Bruce

[sfbp]

MD relies on some quite sophisticated feedback circuitry ("servo") as do all optical devices and indeed all VCR's. A whole bunch of things gotta work right. My sense is that 9 times out of 10 or better, only ONE thing has gone wrong with most MD. It's pretty reliable, mostly.

Just to scare you, once I got my "new" (hahah it was worth about what I paid for it) unit with C13 (BIG CLUE was I sometimes got C14, and just once I managed to read the disk name which was displayed), tried the following things:

1. Replaced the motor ($50 + hassle of putting it on).

2. Replaced the optical pickup head (thanks Jim). Even then it didn't work, though it did happen to work in the machine in which the drive was being tested (huh?). Mostly C14 now.

3. (finally) entered the IOP number written on the optical head into the NVRAM. Now mostly right but there was a tendency of disks to get hot when playing or recording

4. Adjusted the laser power using a laser power meter. Only after this did it give (touch wood) perfect operation.

Don't get bamboozled by thinking MD is like a floppy (disk). It isn't. Writing is actually more likely to work fine than reading, as a lot more power is used. It's the OVERwrite of the TOC which packages the whole thing up (and in the case of HiMD writes a hash or checksum to make the whole shebang valid) that seems critical. Reading is quite tricky, and subject to getting the right amount of laser power onto the surface of the disk.

I still wonder whether I could have got away with 3 & 4 only. When I started (and caused 1 and 2 to be carried out), I didn't have the meter to check the power.

Stephen

[jim.hoggarth]

Don't know about you, Jim, but if I never see another C13 TOC Error message, I'd be just as happy. Thanks for including the "listening to now" part - I had never heard of Marina and the Diamonds, but now have checked out some sound clips and sounds good that way. We'll see if she/they hold up under further scrutiny.

Bruce

Excellent and beautiful young lady. From Greece originally, if I recall correctly. I played that CD to death for several weeks, until I moved on to more recently acquired material. Still keep going back, though.

If you are/were ever into the Rolling Stones, you must hunt down some Admiral Freebee, When I first heard them/him I immediately thought it was ol' Rubber Lips himself, but I actually prefer the Admiral. Very nice mix of styles, actually, not just the Blues.

I must update that list sometime...

Jim

[Hungerdunger]

If you are/were ever into the Rolling Stones, you must hunt down some Admiral Freebee, When I first heard them/him I immediately thought it was ol' Rubber Lips himself, but I actually prefer the Admiral. Very nice mix of styles, actually, not just the Blues.

On a similar theme (but still rather off-topic) there's an Australian band called Tame Impala whose singer sounds amazingly like John Lennon.