PS2 laser - life expectancy

[MrBojangles]

I recently got a messiah fitted to my v5 PS2 and the guy at the shop that installed it said that if I was playing backups I could expect the laser to last roughly 10 months.

This has prompted me to ask the following questions:

Has anybody had to replace their laser after using backups? and if yes how long did their original last and was it easy to replace?

Does anybody have any tips for prelonging the lifespan of the laser? (I assume regular lens cleaning and using good qulity cdr's and dvdr's will help?)

Thanks for any help you may give on this topic.

[charlie_ps2]

Your list makes sense. Additional info in my post "Understanding DVD/DVD-R Issues".

[dust2dust]

my v4 messiah (neo2 fitted with capictor before)its a year half old now between my two kids thier m8s my wife it gets played heavily
my lasers still going strong

the 1 thing i dont do is use ps2 for dvd movies who needs multi region for ps2
to play dvd movie your laser constantly working for 1 1/2- 2 hours
play ps2 games laser works small percentage of time u r playing

[MrBojangles]

Clearly the guy at the shop was probably attempting to ensure that I was not going to be loosing him business, and therfore tried giving me scare stories. Naturally I only backup the games that I already own though.

[Jay_83]

main machine is a version 4, neo2.2 with cap been in for ages now and gets at least 2 hours min a day.

still goin strong and this is the chip with isn't really helpful for the machine!

The guy was probably covering his own bk