wrote in message
oups.com...
I'm a consumer, not a tech, although engineer with a lot of hands on
experience - read "dangerous" -

Nonetheless, my son bought a HCD-GX450 in 2004, and loved it - until
the CD unit stopped reading disks. Out of warrantee, and with Sony's
local service shops not answering their phones on the weekend (sorry
guys, but get an answering machine) - I bought the manual, and started
looking.

To no avail - the software tests never get going, and the unit appears
to have a bad laser.
Sony Laredo is $132 flat rate to fix, but it's $55 to ship to the -
getting real close to the original purchase price. The online support
appears to be robotic, glad they found a use for Asimo.

So now I have a dilemma - the unit was the first thing my son purchased
with his own money from his first teenage job. Unfortunately, it
appears from my experience, and these posting, to be far from worth
fixing.

Advice?


By the way, the part number is -

8-820-244-01 OPTICAL PICK-UP KSM-215DCP/C2NP

According to the manual.

wrote:
Bob Urz wrote:
Mark D. Zacharias wrote:
"BOB URZ" wrote in message
...

I had this compact stereo come in with the usual no play cd
symptom. took it apart to look at and clean the laser.
Closer inspection showed the top of the laser was flat instead
of the rounded coated lens that's usually on the top of the laser.
It also had air bubbles in the lens as i looked at it. I have never
seen

one like this before. Could the lens be glued on and simple fell
off, or did someone try to clean the laser with some sort of solvent
and caused the lens to melt into itself? Strange.

I've seen that on a "new" PS2 laser from Ebay. Needless to say it
didn't work, solvent or heat are about the only things I know of that
can do this.

-A


Anyone got a part number of this laser asssy?
Its got a sliding shield over the laser, and is MP3
capable. It does not look like the typical cheap
213 or 240 lasers.

Bob



Bob,

There's a service bulletin on this - the laser has to be replaced and
a mod
done on the board underneath.

Warning:
The HCD-GX250 and 450 models seem to suffer from a variety of unusual
problems. I've been all over several of these. They are so bad that a
cash
repair on one of these is simply too risky - it's highly likely the
unit
will be back sooner, not later, and essentially be unrepairable. I'm
going
to stop taking them in for cash repairs, and the warranty ones will
go to
Sony in Laredo, TX.

Mark Z.



Thank for the reply. I will probably give a high repair estimate with a
no fix recommendation. What exactly is the service bulletin about?
Is it about the laser lens? I just never saw one that looked like this
one. Its like someone dropped acetone or some strong solvent on the top
of the lens and it melted inward. With air bubbles embedded into the
plastic to boot. damnedest thing i have seen on a laser.

Bob

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Try calling Sony sustomer service and complaining. They might fix it for
free.

Mark Z.