My Panasonic 3DO crapped out last night. (Page 1/1)
Jonesy MAY 14, 06:27 PM
Sad news, as it appears that the CD-Rom drive in my Panasonic 3DO has failed.

Hooked up my 3DO a few weeks ago. Got the retro itch, and hadn't played my 3DO in a while, so I threw in some Road Rash, and ended up doing a full play through of the game Killing Time. After that I threw in Wolf3D and decided to do a full play through of that as well. (3DO version of Wolf3D is amazing btw)... Anyway, last night after work jumped on some Wolf3D to finish my play through, only had 4 levels left to go.. Was playing the game and everything was cool, then the music started to skip, then just stopped. So i reset the console, and now it won't read disks.

Opened up the console and cleaned it up real good, cleaned the laser on the cdrom drive, and greased up the drive rails ect.. Even tried raising and lowering the cd spindle to see if that would help. SOMETIMES it will read the game and load up, but not consistently, and even when it does it eventually craps out (music stops like before, then when you reset it won't read)

So it looks like the cd-rom laser as finally crapped out on it.

Bought it back in 1995 (used) so it had a good run.

Unfortunately from what iv researched, replacement cd-roms drives for the 3DO are very hard to come by. Apparently the only real options are to find a good working one from a donor 3DO, or there is a CD-Rom drive that is apparently compatible, but its cable to hook it up is wrong, and has to be modified to make it work. Although Aliexpress seems to sell replacement laser lens replacement, so i could try swapping that, as the rest of the cd-rom tray seems to work fine, moves the laser lens up and down the tracks just fine.

There is a guy on the internet that made a USB hardware mod for the 3DO. Its a custom cd-rom controller board he makes with a USB drive on it that replaces the CD-Rom drive. You just load your game's CD images onto the USB stick, and load your games through it. Which is nice, since you won't need to worry about a CD-Rom that's gonna wear out again eventually, and you can have all your games on one USB stick, and just load up which one you wanna play. Its plug and play as well, which is nice, so no soldiering.

http://3do-mnemo.com/USB_Host_for_FZ1.htm

The mod is $250, so ill have to save up for a little before i can get one.

Stone age Gamer also sells one that uses SD cards, also $250.

https://stoneagegamer.com/3...-drive-emulator.html

Not sure if this one is plug and play like the other or requires some soldiering, it doesn't say.

So everyone have a moment of silence for my old 3DO.. It's served me nearly 30 years of fun entertainment. I'm not gonna just let it go though, its one of my favorite consoles, and my collection of games and accessories for it are to big to just let it sit.

[This message has been edited by Jonesy (edited 05-14-2023).]

TheDigitalAlchemist MAY 15, 04:15 AM
Sorry this happened to ya, but it sounds like you have ways to keep 'er goin'.

I know this wasn't your intent, but please, grab the nearest shiny pole and wiggle those hips of yours a little, and allow your fellow Fiero family members step in and assist in your situation... (in other words..."Do you has a PayPal, baby?")


All we ask is that maybe you make a little video of your repair. Might help others who have found themselves in the same boat. Don't need to reveal\display your wretched countenance, just an above shot of the MOD. (or DON'T... it just would be neat to watch...we do so like to watch!!!)

byeee!
maryjane MAY 15, 07:05 AM

quote
(or DON'T... it just would be neat to watch...we do so like to watch!!!)



Watch it folks!! We got a peeper in our midst!!
82-T/A [At Work] MAY 15, 08:14 AM

quote
Originally posted by Jonesy:

Sad news, as it appears that the CD-Rom drive in my Panasonic 3DO has failed.

So everyone have a moment of silence for my old 3DO.. It's served me nearly 30 years of fun entertainment. I'm not gonna just let it go though, its one of my favorite consoles, and my collection of games and accessories for it are to big to just let it sit.





When I worked for CompUSA back in ~1996, they were selling at that time a video / graphics card that you plugged into one of your ISA slots, that had a built in 3DO on it. It used the Sound Blaster Pro and Panasonic 2x CD-ROM drive (which are very prevalent on eBay), and then you played 3DO games on your computer, with actual 3DO processor / graphics. The card also had a built-in 3DO controller port.

FYI though, there is an emulator for the 3DO that you can download: https://cdromance.com/emulator/3do-emulators/

And you can download the old ISOs: https://cdromance.com/3do-iso/wolfenstein-3d-usa/


You have those games, so you can just use the ones you already have, but if you wanted the others, you can download them. I'm normally very against burning ROMs of games that you haven't purchased, but in this case... they literally will not be making new ones, and the programmers, developers, etc... will never get any more money from the game that was specifically released on the 3DO since they no longer sell them. So if you spend $150 bucks buying a used copy of Wolfenstein 3D for example... the only one who gets that money is the person who owned that copy, not the retailers, developers, producers, etc.

I used to have a 3DO, was a great system... but I ended up selling it when I got rid of most of my games. I still have an Atari Jaguar though, and I occasionally play Wolfenstein 3D on the Jaguar. Incidentally, the Jaguar got the best version of Wolfenstein 3D (as in, graphics... doesn't have the CD-quality music of the 3DO, or the FMV).
Jonesy MAY 15, 04:12 PM

quote
Originally posted by TheDigitalAlchemist:

Sorry this happened to ya, but it sounds like you have ways to keep 'er goin'.

I know this wasn't your intent, but please, grab the nearest shiny pole and wiggle those hips of yours a little, and allow your fellow Fiero family members step in and assist in your situation... (in other words..."Do you has a PayPal, baby?")


All we ask is that maybe you make a little video of your repair. Might help others who have found themselves in the same boat. Don't need to reveal\display your wretched countenance, just an above shot of the MOD. (or DON'T... it just would be neat to watch...we do so like to watch!!!)

byeee!



Sure I can do that, I'll setup my webcam above my workbench and record the install. Its actually quite simple, you just unhook the ribbon cables from the back of the CD-Rom, then remove the drive. Take the drive mounting bracket off, then screw the new ODE controller board to the bracket, screw the bracket back into its place, and hook the ribbon cables up to the back of the controller board and your done. Pretty cool it also turns the open/close button for the CD tray into a "home" button to take you back to your game select menu. Plus it speeds up load times considerably since your now loading off an SD card instead of a CD.. It has other features too like being able to dump and back up your save game memory. It'll probably be a few weeks to a month. I'll place my order next week after payday. Then, according to his website, it takes about two weeks for him to put one together, then he ships it out.

Honestly i didn't think anyone here would be interested in that kind of thing. But i work on my retro consoles when they need it, and like to mod them as well, so maybe ill start recording those little projects so you guys can see them.

RWDPLZ MAY 15, 04:43 PM
Are you sure it's the laser and not the capacitors? I recapped one a few years ago that wasn't working, works great now, finally got to play the original version of 'Gex' I had seen in magazines back in the day.

https://console5.com/store/...do-fz-1-cap-kit.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VFQgNDtuRg

There's also a gear for the laser that goes bad, might mimic the symptoms of a bad laser:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/30...bxAxQ3DTKN66dxhmVyX2 QZTq8UeizOyq15zz5mb4xgT7UCEkaxH40UAOQIMHfVAmxt2bNryauKNFZgHwlkqQgyH%2BsWib4cFP%2F2lQWK4v6W5cE75Ho2J09R2%2FFQfFSs0h%2FekS83EO4JBWMxgl9uSo2pHEIuE61EYR5i6sck97V5RB%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR7bWqJKEYg
Jonesy MAY 15, 05:28 PM

quote
Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]:
When I worked for CompUSA back in ~1996, they were selling at that time a video / graphics card that you plugged into one of your ISA slots, that had a built in 3DO on it. It used the Sound Blaster Pro and Panasonic 2x CD-ROM drive (which are very prevalent on eBay), and then you played 3DO games on your computer, with actual 3DO processor / graphics. The card also had a built-in 3DO controller port.

FYI though, there is an emulator for the 3DO that you can download: https://cdromance.com/emulator/3do-emulators/

And you can download the old ISOs: https://cdromance.com/3do-iso/wolfenstein-3d-usa/


You have those games, so you can just use the ones you already have, but if you wanted the others, you can download them. I'm normally very against burning ROMs of games that you haven't purchased, but in this case... they literally will not be making new ones, and the programmers, developers, etc... will never get any more money from the game that was specifically released on the 3DO since they no longer sell them. So if you spend $150 bucks buying a used copy of Wolfenstein 3D for example... the only one who gets that money is the person who owned that copy, not the retailers, developers, producers, etc.

I used to have a 3DO, was a great system... but I ended up selling it when I got rid of most of my games. I still have an Atari Jaguar though, and I occasionally play Wolfenstein 3D on the Jaguar. Incidentally, the Jaguar got the best version of Wolfenstein 3D (as in, graphics... doesn't have the CD-quality music of the 3DO, or the FMV).



Yeah i really love my 3DO, its one of my favorite consoles of all time. Whenever i hook it up i get sucked back to 1995 in my room with my friends, whom at the time, had played a SNES or a Genesis, and how the 3DO just blew our minds. I have 52 games in my collection, each one still in its original long box. I know the console was technically a failure, but i just love it, and there are quite a few games on there that are just awesome. Killing Time, Po'ed, Blade Force, Escape from Monster Manor, ect.. And of course, the best version of Road Rash ever! Oh and lets not forget that the Need For Speed series got its start on the 3DO! If you wanna play the OG original version of Need For Speed, its only on 3DO! (Yes the PS1 and Saturn had the 1st NFS game, but its not the same game, those where made for those consoles and are much more arcade style. Where the 3DO original version of NFS was attempting to be more sim like, and was actually created by the same developers that made the old Test Drive series on PC.

So yeah, im gonna get it fixed, just gotta save up a little money. Not only a fix, but an upgrade as well.

But yeah in the mean time i do have the FREEDO emulator on my PC.. Have had it for years. It actually works really well, and has some cool features. Like you can increase the processor speed up to 4x. Which makes games that normally have a low frame rate on 3DO play a good bit smoother.

I have a Jaguar also.. Well actually i have two of them. One is still all original, it was a broken one a friend gave me years ago. He tried to use his AC cable from his Genesis to run his Jaguar, not realizing the Jaguar AC port's polarity is reversed compared to any of the other consoles at the time and it fried the power regulator chip, so i got one of the internet and swapped it out and it works fine. My other Jaguar i modified to have AV out. Gives a much cleaner picture than using to old coax port. It's kinda strange the Jaguar didn't come with AV out, as it is fully capable of it. On the back of your Jaguar you'll see the expansion slot sticking out the rear with pins on it. Well 3 of those pins are your AV out pins. I'd have to check my schematic to remember which 3 pins it is. But if you wanted to do it dirty, you could just soldier your AV wires to those 3 pins, and you got AV out. So i made myself a custom AV out cord to hook onto that expansion slot. Not only does AV out have much cleaner picture than the coax, but it allows me to hook it up to my upscaler, which improves the picture even more. Much cleaner and brighter colors.. I have a pretty good size Jaguar collection as well, i have 30 games for it (well 32 if you count the doubles if Iron Soldier, and Rayden.)

Kinda funny actually, last night while i was researching parts and things to fix my 3DO i came across an old gaming forum topic where people were talking about Wolf3D for the jaguar. I think the conversation was about trying to figure out which button switched weapons in Wolf3D, and you where there.. I think it was from back in like 2014 or something like that.. Just found it funny.

[This message has been edited by Jonesy (edited 05-15-2023).]

Jonesy MAY 15, 05:36 PM

quote
Originally posted by RWDPLZ:

Are you sure it's the laser and not the capacitors? I recapped one a few years ago that wasn't working, works great now, finally got to play the original version of 'Gex' I had seen in magazines back in the day.

https://console5.com/store/...do-fz-1-cap-kit.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VFQgNDtuRg

There's also a gear for the laser that goes bad, might mimic the symptoms of a bad laser:

[URL=https://www.ebay.com/itm/304576985188?hash=item46ea33f864:g:ZTwAAOSw1Exe2PKn&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4IM3hUnpi9%2Bz1CmoPq8rnLGecd%2F3Om%2BvgEKYTuvh1ib4RT%2FdKwfXCmKxss9LmyVYTQjXK7eDZ1O1pCWvfUAR6QzvGJmJZgPfNQ2ecYBDd6QJUiLDboXgHYcYK3Rzh%2FdBbxAxQ3DTKN66dxh mVyX2]https://www.ebay.com/itm/30...bxAxQ3DTKN66dxhmVyX2[/URL] QZTq8UeizOyq15zz5mb4xgT7UCEkaxH40UAOQIMHfVAmxt2bNryauKNFZgHwlkqQgyH%2BsWib4cFP%2F2lQWK4v6W5cE75Ho2J09R2%2FFQfFSs0h%2FekS83EO4JBWMxgl9uSo2pHEIuE61EYR5i6sck97V5RB%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR7bWqJKEYg



Yeah, there are only like what 3 or 4 caps on it? That's a good idea, maybe ill give that a try first. From what i can tell the housing for the laser that moved it up and down the rails are working fine. Put a disk in the system with the top cover off and you can see the cd spin up, and the laser moving up and down the tracks normally, and the laser lens itself bobs up and down, but can't seem to read the disk. I even greased them up a bit to smooth it out. Maybe a cap went bad, and the laser isn't getting enough power to read now. Would explain how it was working perfectly, then just suddenly quit working. Usually a bad laser will give you trouble, but still work as it wears out, getting worse over time. They don't usually work fine, then just don't.. I know one or two of the caps are for the CD-rom, so maybe tonight ill take the entire CD-rom and its housing off so i can get too the board, pretty sure the caps are under the cd rom drive.

Thanks a lot for that link to the recap kit, that'll save me the time of having to hunt them all down individually. But i think your right, may as well replace all the caps, not expensive and not hard to do.. And if it still doesn't read disks after all new caps, then ill just do the mod. And ill have fresh new caps either way. I dunno why i didnt think of that.. I don't have much experience working on cd-roms themselves other than swapping an entire drive, so i didn't think about a cap going bad, and maybe the laser is getting starved for power and can't read..

I had a feeling posting about this here would bring in ideas i didnt think of.. Much appreciated.

[This message has been edited by Jonesy (edited 05-15-2023).]

ls3mach MAY 24, 05:44 PM
I don't think I've ever played one. I think retro consoles are neat, but I just don't want all the extra.

If I had a friend into it, I'd for sure think it was cool though


I'm trying to get a friend to play a Zelda game with me. The 2013 "remake" of a Link to the Past.

I saw someone had an Amiga watching YouTube. It was useless, but can you swap parts in like that? I think he had a 26Mghz Motorola and 128MB of ram.
RWDPLZ MAY 24, 07:45 PM

quote
Originally posted by ls3mach:

I saw someone had an Amiga watching YouTube. It was useless, but can you swap parts in like that? I think he had a 26Mghz Motorola and 128MB of ram.



Oh yeah. One of my hobbies is repairing and upgrading old consoles and computers. Everything from the Atari 2600 to the Xbox 360, some require more extensive work than others.