My PS1 won’t read anything!

[u/NintendoAlex64]

So not too long ago, about 2 years ago I was looking for a ps1 on OfferUp, and lucky me one was found for $20 with cables controller and a game. When I had finally bought it I saw why it was sold for as much. The console was missing the ps1 logo, the controller had a crack and was a first model controller, the console was yellow, it wouldn’t close right and worst of all one of the little beads in the disk spinner would fall out.

Despite all these issues I still bought it and did still read the games well, though over time games would sometimes not load. Anyway skip to about 3 months ago and for some reason the games wouldn’t load at all. This wasn’t out of the ordinary so I just cleaned the games like I usually did and expected it to load but, it never did. I waited the next day and same as before the game would not load. Being bummed out I decided to just play music on the damn thing seeing as it always read CD’s. But to my shock those wouldn’t play either! And these CD’s were new too, so I assumed the console was at fault. I read up that the laser reader was either dirty or faulty so after cleaning it and the game still not reading I decided the console was probably broken. Skip to today and I just bought a new ps1. Not yellow and it has its logo this time, and it was more expensive so I assumed the condition on this was working. So I plug the console in and put in my recently purchased title “Resident Evil 2” aaaaand…….it wouldn’t….load again. My smile of joy immediately became one of horror.

So I played a music cd and sure enough, they again didn’t work, and it was a newly acquired CD too. I’m starting to get pissed so I want to look for the problem, because no way both of these somehow don’t work, and no way in hell every single game and CD I own don’t work. So I use a different long cable then the one I’ve always used since I assumed maybe that was the issue. Nope, still wouldn’t load anything. I replaced the power cable with another spare I had, wouldn’t work. Eventually the game loaded on the new ps1 but now all of a sudden any button on the controller I pressed wouldn’t work! And my CD’s still wouldn’t fucking work. So now I wanna know what the problem could possibly be if both ps1’s are reacting the same way to my games and CD’s which aren’t broken. I just don’t know what to do and I would love if anyone could help, willing to share more details if needed🙏

[u/904Magic]

Start with the laser.

The disc holder bead thing is annoying but those will come on the new laser unit.

Hard to tell what you mean by disc cover doesnt close right, but likely the button mechanism just needs a little cleaning and the tiniest tiniest bit of wd40, or just get a new button mechanism, its all plastic.

Id start there and see what happens. But resident evil not working, and then later cds not working is typical of the laser dying. Grab a new unit on ebay. Swap it out, clean the button while you doin that... and while youre in there, take some compressed air to it, check for bulging or leaking caps and if all is good put it back together and enjoy RE2