Yup, still on about the Model 1 Sega CD.

[VenomMacbeth]

Alright techies, I need your input.

Since my Model 1 seems to work okay, but has some ridiculously long load times & doesn't always load music in games, I decided I'd crack it open.

I did some research & I thought I might try adjusting the laser intensity pot, just to see if that would help.  In case you can't tell, it's the JVC laser instead of the Sony one. 




Everywhere I've read seems to indicate that there should be 3 pots on the laser assembly.  As you can see, there's only one.




However, on the back of the attached PCB, there are 4 pots.






So what do all these pots do?  What would be a good course of action to take from here?  Games will boot up just fine, but load times seem to get progressively worse the more I play the system, but I could be mistaken on that as I haven't had it for very long.  My theory is that either the laser is weak, or the belt is worn causing the disc to not spin fast enough.  However, as I've said before, I'm really inexperienced with this kind of thing, so I could be dead wrong. 

[SignOfZeta]

I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure there has never been a belt drive CD player.

I would try cleaning the lens and looking for leaking caps before adjusting the pots. If you do adjust the pots take good photos of what position they are in so you can return them to that position if you have to. Make adjustments one at a time.

[Tatsujin]

Just use a permanent marker for the pots original position.

[xelement5x]

Just use a permanent marker for the pots original position.

Just use a permanent marker for the pots original position.

This, and the belt that you're talking about normally only needs replacing if you can't start the game.  Like you put the disc in the drive and it keeps ejecting it. 

I'd check out Sega16 as they have a repair thread for SegaCDs.  I've been lucky that I've never needed a laser replaced, normally just mechanical stuff.  Just make sure that if you mess with the pots you mark the original positions first.

[VenomMacbeth]

Okay, I'm pretty sure I just solved both problems.

The load times were so abysmal because I was using an after-market AC adapter, and I've heard that can cause problems.  It's likely that the thing wasn't getting enough power to spin the disk fast enough or something.

The distortion on-screen was caused by the model 1 Genesis & not the Sega CD.  Whatever the problem is, both my model 1 Genny and Mega Drive have it.  I tested it with a model 2 & it looked just fine, albeit with the usual jailbars of the model 2 itself. 

I'm about to crack open my model 1 & see if I can figure out what the problem is.