FM Towns II ME broken?

[gbaplayer]

Hello,

i have a Problem with my FM Towns II ME PC. Yesterday i wanted to Play it, for only the second time since i own it and suddenly it won´t read CDs anymore. I tried it once a year ago and back then it worked. Floppy discs still work.
Does anyboy has an idea what can be done now? Can somebody (located in europe) maybe repair the disc drive for me?

Thanks a lot,
gbaplayer

[Elrinth]

take it apart and maybe you can clean the lens. if not, maybe there's some potentiometer resistor you can adjust for the cd to work.

[gbaplayer]

Sorry but i cannot do something like this...i have to left hands. ^^

[kamiboy]

Fixing CD drives is very tricky business. Especially the drives in Towns computers are difficult to work with and find parts for. Knowing how to take apart electronics and doing rudimentary repair work is pretty much a prerequisite for Japanese PC ownership, if not retro gaming hardware collecting in general.

If you cannot even do that then you dun goofed son. Shipping that behemoth back and forth is going to cost you a fortune, and does in no way come with a guarantee of success.

I would suggest you just buy another Towns from Japan. This time a lightweight model like the Marty, and sell the one you have for parts on ebay to cover some of the costs. Will prolly be cheaper than having that one repaired.

[Hoagtech]

I vote for cleaning the lens. I have had to do this to my Xbox OG and it worked out.

Start by removing the 2 Phillips holding it into the bracket and be prepared to pry some aluminum.

A lot of people use alcohols or windex (which makes it worse and foggy) so apply a thin layer of white lithium grease to the lens cover to moisturize.

I would think you could use a generic laser from the era and resolder.

Find out what speed it runs (most likely .5 - 2x) and butcher away.

[kamiboy]

It is never a dirty lens, and there is no such thing as a generic lens either, so far as I know. Plus, lithium grease on the lens, what fresh madness is this?

To clean the lens just get one of them CD player cleaning disc boombobs from eBay or something. But it is almost guaranteed not to work.

[Hoagtech]

It is never a dirty lens, and there is no such thing as a generic lens either, so far as I know. Plus, lithium grease on the lens, what fresh madness is this?

To clean the lens just get one of them CD player cleaning disc boombobs from eBay or something. But it is almost guaranteed not to work.

Yes lithium grease. Glass gets foggy with alcohols. It's a long moisturizer that's clarifies cloudy glass

[parodius]

Adjusting the laser screw on the other hand helped my Towns CD drive read CDs properly.

[rpgposer]

I wouldn't put grease, alcohol or any other "cleaner" on the lens. Just a lens tissue and your breath (maybe) or perhaps a cotton swab. Very light pressure. It is a lens, and we used to clean our camera lenses with tissues and our breath.
BTW - cleaning a CD ROM lens never really worked for me... every CD-ROM device I had trouble with was either beginning to fail or dead.

[Hoagtech]

I would use grease that's why I mentioned it. The heat from the laser makes the laser shroud cloudy over the years and lithium grease is a full synthetic liquid meaning it won't go away any time soon. It forms a transparent barrier.

But to back to the OP: here is a list of internal cd drive replacements that do work:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/CDROM-HOWTO/x97.html


And here are people replaceing proprietary with generic drives

http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=5346.0

I would recommend sourcing the proprietary drives first.

Also you could resolder a laser and a pickup as long as its the same speed as the drive and fits inside the pickup brackets of your drive.

[gbaplayer]

I cannot pick up a Marty because it won´t play all FM Towns games, or is there a trick?

If somebody in Europe could help me out, then shipping won´t be that expensive.
The drive won´t start rotating the disc that is the main problem, somebody in another board told me it could be a problem of the power adapter...

Any recommendations for a 4MB FM Towns system? I only need the main system as i still have a keyboard, mouse and AC adapter.

[kamiboy]

Questions to ask yourself. What games can the Marty actually not play? Do you really care to play them very much?

Also, about that CD repair thread posted above. Yeah, I know that one very well, I found it back when I repaired my Towns which had CD troubles. Did you actually bother reading it? No one has managed to replace a Towns CD drive with anything generic. The OP was just throwing ideas around, and nothing ever came of it. For any chance of repairing a dead laser you have to source a specific replacement, or no dice.

[gbaplayer]

The Marty cannot play the RPGs and Eroge RPGs i own...

I will read the posted threads when i get home.

[kamiboy]

Ah, so you aim to dive into the obscure end of the library. In that case then you would indeed need more CPU power, and memory.

In terms of recommended models, since Towns computers are, well, computers you can be upgrade their memory manually yourself bu using the right module. In that case all you need to worry about is CPU power. You can find out which models came with a 486 CPU. Just get one of those.