PS2 Plays Games, Not DVD's
 

Was hoping maybe one of you could offer some advice. The PS2 at my mom's house will play games fine but does not play dvd's. It always says there is an error reading the disc. I've tried several and it never works. My mom's house is very dusty and I kind of think that's the problem but I'm not sure why it would read game discs and not movie discs. Any ideas?

I'd try, if you are brave, opening up the case and cleaning the laser. Get a Q-tip and some rubbing alcohol, then dip the tip in the alcohol. Then gently rub the wet end on the laser, followed with the dry end to get any residue off. This will work for 9 out of 10 disk read errors for any disk based electronic.

Know that you are going to be voiding the warranty in the process.

Are the games it reads DVD media or CD media? The early games were still CD based, and I thought I'd heard at one point that the DVD laser & the CD laser were separate devices in the PS2.

If it's reading DVD based games & not DVD movies, I'm not sure what the problem could be unless its corrupt firmware/driver. Doesn't the PS2 (at least early models) have firmware or a driver that you have to load on a memory card?

If it only reads CD based games, and no DVD media then possibly a laser problem.

They're all PS2 games (SSX Tricky, Tony Hawk PS2, etc.) so shouldn't be the cd/dvd issue. I'm pretty sure it's out of warranty anyway so maybe I'll try cleaning it. I assume the laser is under the disc tray somewhere, right? Is it fairly easy to spot?

Thanks for your help guys.

Before trying to clean it yourself, give a call to Sony. They'll ask you alot of questions, if you tried this or that and so on. Try them if you haven't. If the problem persists, send it in. The charge is 95 bucks (OUCH), but check your waranty.. and if not, be firm but not rude and they may wave the fee including shipping.

MY PS2 couldn't read CD media (exact opposite of like 95% of the PS2 problems out there). I explained to the CS rep.. and they hadnled it for me. Told me it would take 4-6 weeks and I got it back within 7 working days. Plays great now.

I thought all PS2's had 2 laser's one for games and one for movies. Wasn't this a common problem for them? One of the lasers would go?