Goldstar 3DO problems

[Fuddman]

Hi all,
I recently finally bought a 3do system, got to play it for about a week before I started getting problems with it. Apologies for the long post but I have to explain what happened.

So the model I bought is the GoldStar GD0-202P (seems a lot less common and only sold in Europe, its all grey in colour). Now I didn't know this at the time of purchase but its one of two versions that has copy protection on.... I had a retail game already and it played that obviously with no problems. I looked into the system more and stumbled across a Russian 3do forum, in this forum I learnt a lot about the copy protection. There is a mod chip developed in Russia for it, but there is also a copy protection work around if you can be bothered with it. Basically you have to either have the top of the unit off or the front cd cover off for it to work, once you have the backup game in if you use a cotton bud or something similar and lightly press on the cd while it's being read to slow it down at a specific point then the backup will boot. It's a bit of a hassle but I got the timing pretty much spot on in the end and was playing many games this way for about a week no problems at all.

At this point though I started to become a little paranoid that me pressing the power button so many times (if the boot trick didn't work) I'd maybe break something so after looking online it seemed safe to instead of power cycling when I wanted to play a new game to just swap the disk mid game, this worked and as soon as the new game went in the system would reset itself and attempt to boot the next game.

It's at this point that the problem seemed to arise, I had just burnt a new game and I noticed there was some cd skipping in the gameplay, music skips and gameplay pauses. Thinking it was just a bad burn I power cycled the system, but when it powered back on I noticed the yellow access light on the right of the system was permanently on, the cd tray would not come out and the system wouldn't boot past the initial 3do logo screen. I power cycled a few more times and it did eventually go back to normal again (a little gremlin in the system I thought), I put in a different back up and started playing fine again. Though after another power cycle the problem popped up again, constantly on access light and not properly booting into bios, cd tray not working.

I've opened the system up and taken a good look around, there doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with the cd drive, no cracks with cogs, ribbon looks fine (the ribbon doesn't get broken with this model as it doesn't move when drive moves). Cleaned all the motherboards, there was zero sign of capacitors leaking (though I changed 3 of the power related ones, 4700 and two 1000 ones) that didn't make a difference. I will add that even if the drive is disconnected and booted the system still doesn't boot and access light is still always on.

I wonder if anyone knows of any other potential solution there might be to this problem? I've searched everywhere online and I can't find another system that's had the same problem.

Thanks in advance!

[Wing_Commander]

On 1/28/2022 at 9:50 AM, Fuddman said:

Hi all,
I recently finally bought a 3do system, got to play it for about a week before I started getting problems with it. Apologies for the long post but I have to explain what happened.

So the model I bought is the GoldStar GD0-202P (seems a lot less common and only sold in Europe, its all grey in colour). Now I didn't know this at the time of purchase but its one of two versions that has copy protection on.... I had a retail game already and it played that obviously with no problems. I looked into the system more and stumbled across a Russian 3do forum, in this forum I learnt a lot about the copy protection. There is a mod chip developed in Russia for it, but there is also a copy protection work around if you can be bothered with it. Basically you have to either have the top of the unit off or the front cd cover off for it to work, once you have the backup game in if you use a cotton bud or something similar and lightly press on the cd while it's being read to slow it down at a specific point then the backup will boot. It's a bit of a hassle but I got the timing pretty much spot on in the end and was playing many games this way for about a week no problems at all.

At this point though I started to become a little paranoid that me pressing the power button so many times (if the boot trick didn't work) I'd maybe break something so after looking online it seemed safe to instead of power cycling when I wanted to play a new game to just swap the disk mid game, this worked and as soon as the new game went in the system would reset itself and attempt to boot the next game.

It's at this point that the problem seemed to arise, I had just burnt a new game and I noticed there was some cd skipping in the gameplay, music skips and gameplay pauses. Thinking it was just a bad burn I power cycled the system, but when it powered back on I noticed the yellow access light on the right of the system was permanently on, the cd tray would not come out and the system wouldn't boot past the initial 3do logo screen. I power cycled a few more times and it did eventually go back to normal again (a little gremlin in the system I thought), I put in a different back up and started playing fine again. Though after another power cycle the problem popped up again, constantly on access light and not properly booting into bios, cd tray not working.

I've opened the system up and taken a good look around, there doesn't seem to be anything obviously wrong with the cd drive, no cracks with cogs, ribbon looks fine (the ribbon doesn't get broken with this model as it doesn't move when drive moves). Cleaned all the motherboards, there was zero sign of capacitors leaking (though I changed 3 of the power related ones, 4700 and two 1000 ones) that didn't make a difference. I will add that even if the drive is disconnected and booted the system still doesn't boot and access light is still always on.

I wonder if anyone knows of any other potential solution there might be to this problem? I've searched everywhere online and I can't find another system that's had the same problem.

Thanks in advance!

It is possible that you have damaged the motor that spins the CD when pressind down on the CD to slow it down. Or you might try doing an entire recap as some compacitors deal with the drive itself. 

[Fuddman]

9 hours ago, Wing_Commander said:

It is possible that you have damaged the motor that spins the CD when pressind down on the CD to slow it down. Or you might try doing an entire recap as some compacitors deal with the drive itself. 

Thanks for the reply. I hope its not the motor, I doubt that would be easily repaired/ replaced? Regarding the capacitors, are the caps that control the drive itself on the cd drive board or are some on the main board too? If so do you know which ones specifically? 

Also, I forgot to mention, when the power is turned on the cd lense does come alive (that is it moves up and down slightly accompanied by a slight clicking noise). But does nothing else after that. 

Thanks. 

[Fuddman]

Hi all, 
A bit more progress on this problem. 
I took the system apart again to try and find anything obvious that was wrong that i may have missed. I added some grease to the cd drive cogs and tracks and cleaned the whole cd drive board with lots of ipa. I turned it back on and it did the same thing, solid yellow access light. I then left it on for a few minutes in that state and it finally booted to the bios and the access light turned off. I could then open/ close the cd drive without problem. I tried putting a retail disc in but refused to read it. 
After turning the power off and then on again it failed to boot to bios again. 
As it refused to read the cd when it did finally boot what could that mean? It's just a fault with the drive or something else too? 
Thanks. 

[Wing_Commander]

On 1/30/2022 at 5:42 AM, Fuddman said:

Hi all, 
A bit more progress on this problem. 
I took the system apart again to try and find anything obvious that was wrong that i may have missed. I added some grease to the cd drive cogs and tracks and cleaned the whole cd drive board with lots of ipa. I turned it back on and it did the same thing, solid yellow access light. I then left it on for a few minutes in that state and it finally booted to the bios and the access light turned off. I could then open/ close the cd drive without problem. I tried putting a retail disc in but refused to read it. 
After turning the power off and then on again it failed to boot to bios again. 
As it refused to read the cd when it did finally boot what could that mean? It's just a fault with the drive or something else too? 
Thanks. 

I would to an entire recap and possibly look into getting a new drive if that recap doesn't do the trick.. Recap is the cheaper option. There are people out there that will do this for ya. There is likely someone on the facebook page "Panasonic 3DO" who can help you. I think a guy on there might do it for like 50 bucks + Shipping. 

Edited January 31, 2022 by Wing_Commander

[Wing_Commander]

Your next cheapest option comes with the longest URL in the history of man kind!!:

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[Fuddman]

@Wing_Commander

I'll try to get this recapped and see if it helps.

Thanks for the advice! 

[derSammler]

On 1/31/2022 at 10:27 PM, Wing_Commander said:

Your next cheapest option comes with the longest URL in the history of man kind!!:

What he writes does not lead to the conclusion at all that the laser itself is bad.

 

I think there are actually two issues: the caps must be replaced. Bad caps certainly could explain the time-related issues that arise.

 

Second issue is probably a mechanical misalignment of some part of the drive due to the way he tried to boot copied games. The platter on the motor can slide down when too much pressure is added. Had this once on a CD-i 470. The disc then has no longer the correct distance to the laser. This is easy to fix, as you can slide it back up.

 

Whatever it is, recap first.

[Wing_Commander]

On 2/2/2022 at 4:18 AM, derSammler said:

What he writes does not lead to the conclusion at all that the laser itself is bad.

 

I think there are actually two issues: the caps must be replaced. Bad caps certainly could explain the time-related issues that arise.

 

Second issue is probably a mechanical misalignment of some part of the drive due to the way he tried to boot copied games. The platter on the motor can slide down when too much pressure is added. Had this once on a CD-i 470. The disc then has no longer the correct distance to the laser. This is easy to fix, as you can slide it back up.

 

Whatever it is, recap first.

I didn't think it concluded that, just that if it comes to fixing it I believed the nex cheapest option would be a laser replacement giving the symptoms. I like your input here though, that is a valid point that the laser might just need adjustment. I would do that before considering a new laser and agree that I would do an entire recap first and foremost.