Guest Anonymous Posted March 17, 2003 Report Share Posted March 17, 2003 I have owned this Sony MZ-R90 for about 3 years, all good till now. The problem occured as I was in playback mode and fast forwarding searching for a track. I probably rushed the key commands somewhat ... I never found the track I was looking for... the unit "froze". I powered down removing external and internal battery. pressed play and opened/closed the unit to drain any residual power and waited . Still didn't help. The unit only shows sign of life when putting a disc in ... it attempts to read the disc as per normal (can hear disc spin and laser arm scan) the display then shows 0000 time and track 001 no. If I press play, the 0000 diappears and nothing happens. If I try to move to the next track ... the volume menu appears and repeating the button press lowers the volume. ITS ALMOST AS IF THE KEYS ON THE UNIT ARE NO LONGER CORRECTLY ASSIGNED TO THEIR FUNCTION, like they are crossed over randomly The unit will time out per normal and switch off... from there the only function that will turn on the unit is using the REC slider, which shows "write protected" as the disk in the unit is. I would be most grateful to anyone who may be able to point me in the right direction! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted March 20, 2003 Report Share Posted March 20, 2003 Firstly, I have experienced this problem about 3 or 4 times in the past on my MZ-R90 which is also around 3 years old. You will find that with a little trial and error, you will eventually find the play button! Though this won't help you solve your problem, it may provide a workaround. The fault cleared on my deck by basically draining power, waiting a bit, then sticking a different disc in and hitting play. I don't know the exact cause, but it was related to certain key press combinations. The fact that this did not work you for is a bit of a worry. Secondly, here is a link to the MZ-R90/91 service manual as provided by minidisc.org. http://www.minidisc.org/manuals/sony/servi...vice_manual.pdf Have a read of the section pertaining to test mode, sounds as if you inadvertently entered test mode and remapped all your buttons. Follow the instructions and remap your buttons accordingly. If you are still having problems, suggest you contact your local minidisc repairer, unfortunately. Nick S. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted March 20, 2003 Report Share Posted March 20, 2003 Hey Nick, Thanks for the reply, I will give the remap a go. I had heard about service mode from a friend a few years ago and he told me about some horror stories re people entering service mode and basically having to buy a new unit 'cause they made such a mess of it. And so I never been tempted since I've never had any application/need to do so. I work with Sony Data projectors and know that anyone who does'nt know what they are doing can cause hours of re adjusting by venturing into serv. mode. Since I dont know much about firmware on the MD I ve resisted the temptation! I'll download the serv. man and take it slowly ... 'cause at this stage it's totally in-operable and dont have much to loose, and only other option is to take it to an authorised ripp-off service agent! Thanks again Nick, see how we go ... i'll let you know the deal for your own technical curiosity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted April 9, 2003 Report Share Posted April 9, 2003 Hi Nick, Thanks for your suggestion ... I tried service mode using the keypad method ... without any luck. So i then followed Service manual instructions to remove the back cover in order to short out the correct pins on the PCB directlt ... this too did not make any difference ... the unit doesn't respond in any way ... This is as far as I got , dont have a lot of spare time to "tweek" away. I guess I will try a few things out before I give in to the local Sony service centre. M.ric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted April 9, 2003 Report Share Posted April 9, 2003 M.Ric, Don't give in yet, entering test mode via the keypad is tricky and takes some practice to get right. I would not recommend shorting out pins on the PCB unless your an EXPERIENCED electronics repairer. Either way, I'm guessing you did not enter the correct key press combination and you did not short the correct pins on the PCB, that is why you could not enter test mode. In fact, thinking about it a little more, I should have been more specific in saying that you WILL NOT be able to enter test mode using the key press combination for obvious reasons!!!!! (your keypad is not mapped to the keys mentioned in the service manual) until you have determined what your keys are currently mapped to, then you could do the substitution. Your two options are: 1 Determine what your keys are currently mapped to and substitute those keys with that mentioned in the service manual to enter service mode. 2 Short the CORRECT pins on the PCB to enter test mode. If you are certain you are shorting the correct pins and you are still not entering service mode, then the unit has problems that could probably only be fixed by a repairer. Good Luck. Nick S. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Anonymous Posted April 10, 2003 Report Share Posted April 10, 2003 Hi Nick, Thx for the reply. I will have to go for option 2 ... short the pins (since most keys do not have any function assigned to them anymore except to turn Vol down) . I do have experience in PCB assembly ( incl. surface mount soldering) ... I am also very meticulous when it comes to dis-assembling compact units etc ... Only problem is that I did not read carefully enough the PCB circuit diag. indicating where the test mode pins were located. Result ? (embarrassing) I removed the main cct. board thinking the test pins were underneath on the track side of the PCB between two Micro chips(mis-read cct diag) ... when in actual fact they were on the component side which only required the back cover to be removed! I found I had difficulty re-connecting one of the "Flexible ribbon wire looms" The one to the display ... So when I finally put the main board back together, the unit still "spins" when I put a disk in ... but now the display is completly blank. So I know the main mechanism is still intact, just need to reconnect display & keypad. So I removed the solder join to the test pins ( with solder sucker and braid) and will carefully try to get the display ribbon cable to "travel" all the way into it's socket ... 'cause at the moment it protrudes , hence no display or keys will work. I didn'y want to force it in and ran out of time so I will give another go when I am feeling patient and really missing the good tunes that I only have on MD! Keep you posted Nick M.ric Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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