Xbox pot tweaking tutorial :)

**Dominator** · 13th December 2002

this thread has been very hepful. I am probably going to tweak my DVD-Rom considering it reads no burned discs. I tried Princo DVD-RWs and a couple CD-Rs with no luck. I'd like to try the Neo DVD-Rs but I can't find any sellers. anyone have a link to someplace that sells them?

Thanks anyways, I'll let you all know how it turns out.

**charlievarley** · 1st May 2003

Thx for the tut buddy gonna give this a try

**Garny** · 23rd June 2003

Tried and works , thanks a lot

**maltloaf** · 28th June 2003

glad to hear it

**clownbow** · 29th June 2003

when i use the multi meter, on the pot.
i get a reading and then it goes to zero.

what should i do.

**mrvachon** · 20th July 2003

I've tried to follow some of the threads but none seem to work for me so I decided to do some tweaking of my own. I own an Xbox with a Phillips DVD drive that crapped out on me about 2 months ago... I'm a do-it yourself kind of guy and figure why should I pay Microsoft of all people to fix this problem when I could probably fix it myself.

Here is what I found:

1) The Phillips drive has 2 laser adjustment potentiometers (Pots) that are easily accessible by just lifting the top cover off your DVD drive.

2) The Pots are both 1.4K pots which means their resistance can be adjusted anywhere from 0 ohms to 1,400 ohms. Having designed some circutes and realize that the laser is somewhat the same as a regular diode, these are most likely pullup resistors. In most designs these are 1K resistors since the diode needs a certain "bias" voltage to work properly.

3) Knowing that I set my resistance to 1K (1000 ohms) for each pot and that seems to work well for me.

NOTE: Forget even thinking about turning the Pot before you measure it's orignial resistance. I forgot to do this and it cause me a lot of grief trying to get the right resistance.

Also.. That guy that posted his 1/4 adjustment... IGNORE that. These pots are very sensitive and it would through off the resistance by a lot. It must have been sheer LUCK that his is working.

PS: Anyone that tried their luck with the 1/4 turn thing and it worked I'd like to know your resistance that you measured. If you don't know how... Measure from the TOP of the POT where it is connected to the circuit board to GROUND. (I used one of the mounting screws on the Main motherboard.

I hope this helps someone.. eh?

**Prodigal** · 12th June 2004

Maltloaf

I have a Thomson drive that is battling to read some original games.
Initial setting is 333 ohms. Seems very low according to tutorials I have read.

What do you suggest I do? Go up or down? And by how much to start?

Thanks

**gujju** · 15th November 2004

Well, anything below 800 will damage your disk. Following is the link for step by step tutorial with pictures.

hxxp://www.llamma.com/xbox/Repairs/xbox_dvd_repair.htm

I hope this helps.

**s1mmo** · 8th December 2004

heh, sweet. I was looking for this

**virusmac** · 8th February 2005

nice one mate worked a treat

**virusmac** · 8th February 2005

mice one mate worked sweet

**frozenbal** · 24th February 2005

Originally Posted by Dominator

this thread has been very hepful. I am probably going to tweak my DVD-Rom considering it reads no burned discs. I tried Princo DVD-RWs and a couple CD-Rs with no luck. I'd like to try the Neo DVD-Rs but I can't find any sellers. anyone have a link to someplace that sells them?

Thanks anyways, I'll let you all know how it turns out.

i use cdrw to put stuff like small files and music on the xbox maxwell 700mb cd-rw80 and for the dvds i found ritek dvd-r go4 or go5 dye works well with my phillips dvd rom drive but the only dvdrw that works is d phillips dvd+rw but recently we done my mates xbox (also phillips drive) and he had nothing but trouble with it so we adjusted the pot and it worked fine

**sam15** · 16th July 2005

dont really know if anyone has mention this try cleaning the laser with a cotton swab and some isopropyl alcohol as dust settling on the laser eye can affect the reading of the discs
just a thought

**andrer6biker** · 30th September 2005

Hi have just pot tweaked a version 2 philips dvd rom and thought the settings might be usefull to someone. Pot 1 the one on the left as you look at it the right way up and with pots facing you was 950ohm and the one on the right was 1000ohm. This was the best setting that i could get and cleared all the dirty disc errors i was getting with the ritec discs.

**Noctournis** · 11th February 2014

Maltloaf, thank you! Just did this on my XBox 360 Slim and it did the trick. Didn't go as far as 1800, took it down to 2570 and it worked fine.

You saved my machine! You rock!