PC Engine CD-ROM� drive

[Sumez]

I guess this is more of a repair issue than a mod :\

I think it's a well known fact that the original PCE CD-ROM peripheral is not the best of cd drives. Released in '89, it's one of the earliest CD-ROM drives produced.
I don't know about the Duo and the Super CD-ROM� peripheral, I only have the aforementioned.

Anyway, recently I received R-Type Complete CD, and went to play it with my new Hori stick. It had been a while since I last used the PC Engine, and last time it worked fine. But now, when pressing the run button to start the cd game, it tried to load the game, but the cd wasn't spinning in the CD drive, so it was just loading forever. I tried to work the unit manually by playing the CD tracks with the buttons on it. Still, nothing happened. I assured it was firmly connected to the interface unit, no problems there, and it had lots of power. Horrified, I grabbed my screwdriver and took the drive apart, seeing if there was any visible damage. I could not find anything, and put the thing together again, and tried once more. Now the disc would spin, and the game loaded.
However it seems to be a bit slower than usual. At times, when trying to load a new cd track, it spends really long time loading, much more than usual, though the second time you hear the same trac, it's faster.
Also, I've always had some interference in the form of a humming noise and the screen flickering (I have no idea what causes this, anyone know about it? Is it common for a PCE?), and it seems to be much worse now!. That is, more flicker and a louder noise. As I have not yet tried another cd game since, it MIGHT be caused by the cd, but it looks fine, and I'm assuming it's related to the earlier problem where the disc wouldn't spin at all.

So is anyone into the CD-ROM� unit?
First of all, do you know what causes all of these problems?
And secondary, does anyone know of a way to fix it?

[NFG]

Unfortunately those old drives were, as you noticed, a real mess inside.  They're not well made and they're not real durable.  I have one, I love it, but it doesn't work well.  The interface unit itself bears a lot of the blame, it doesn't work well at all.  I've got ~8 of the stupid things (IFU and CD) and only one works semi-reliably.

Sadly there's not much you can do to fix it.