Aimed at anyone that owns a GC. The kids machine has packed up, just says "no disc" .
Have tried cleaning discs and swithching off for half an hr but no joy
any ideas ?

Official media? if so the laser has failed. If its DVDr media, then you need to tweak your laser.

you can try tweaking the laser, which means opening it up. You'll need a multimeter, a screw driver, a lighter and about 5million biros (jump half way into the gamecube thread, and read on, its towards the end you'll see a guide). This will increase the ability to read media.

Alternatively, you can buy new lasers on ebay.

There's nothing else to do however.

Here's where it starts to talk about laser tweaks:
http://forum.dead-donkey.com/viewtopic. ... &start=180

OK my 8 yr old just fixed it
apparently if you lift the lid and slide this cats eye type thing to the outside it works fine
Seriosly tho Spud do i hang him by his ankles for poking his fingers in it or buy him a modding kit
I presume that was the laser, it seems to slide freely is that ok ?

you slide what in the where now? eerrr no, mine doesn't do anything like that...

Here's your answer
If he's got all the zeldas and nintendo games already, buy him an xbox Then take it off him and keep it for yourself.

What i mean is when you open it up there is a groove from the centre to the outside edge in which the laser sits i presume so it can read from the outside in ? . So i think the prob was the laser was trying to read the disc from the middle or somewhere else on the disc. so by pushing it to the outside it worked I think

I had that dilemma last xmas when they ended up with a GC mainly cuz they had a 64 and really loved Zelda and Mario and the range of games on the Xbox for under 8's was very limited and no Zelda
Both of them reconized your avatar as " the moon that falls out of the sky and destroys eveyone"
Not that they surf here i caught them looking over my shoulder one day

Shows they've got more taste than most people then

Yeah i know what you mean now, the laser hadn't returned to the start position ro more likely got stuck. It does sound like the laser motor might be on its way out, but i know what you mean now. There's no way to fix it permanently, i guess its just got well used.

As far as i know, it reads from the inside outwards though doesn't it? That's why overburning can cause problems with files stored on the disc last and why audio tracks at the end my skip since the laser can't make it that far out.

Mines sat on the inside by where you put the disc,

Not sure which way round it is but it's working now
yes the first month or so was constant so we cut them down to 2hr each a day for 4 days of the week

you tyrant! I played LOZ: OoT constantly when i got it 24/7