It's probably too late and Arfa won't see this, but I brought my whole
Sega CD to a repair shop, and he was able to reproduce the problem
when COLD.

With a scope, he discovered that the CD-ROM drive is in "seek" mode
when playing video games, hence the disc spins faster. Possibly to
boost transfer rate for the games "Full Motion Video".

Also, he discovered the grinding will ONLY occur when the drive is in
it's "1.5x" mode, as when playing music CD's, the grinding was
impossible to produce.

Solution: He has a replacement mech where the laser and PCB will
happily attach, and the Sega CD doesn't even know a different mech is
installed. Only downside: Tray is now white, and not black. ehh..
As long as it works..

Good result then !

Arfa

PS: You don't think it would be stupid, for me to use my Sega CD as
my CD audio player? It does have great audio qualities, and it's
actually my only system in my theater, that can play CD's at such a
good quality. (even my HTPC can't compete!)

With specs like this:
16 bit DAC
8x internal over-sampling digital filter
Frequency Range: 20 Hz - 20 kHz
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: 90.0 dB @ 1K
Channel Separation: 90.0 dB

I assume that's good, because it sounds good.


I see no reason not to. Its spec looks much the same as most regular
players. Many players of a few years back, used the KSS240A laser. It's a
reasonably long-lived and reliable type, so no issues there.

Arfa