Laser question

[yankeesfan]

My V4 NTSC with a No-solder using Gameshark and DMC for booting. This set up worked fine for about 3 months when suddenly I couldn't boot DVD-R's most of the time. 8 out of 10 tries would freeze at the "updating codes" screen. I could tell something was wrong because after the DMC swap I could now hear "clicking" type sounds when before there would be silence after the DMC swap after about 12 seconds.
Anyway, I now use the Swap Magic disc's instead of the Gameshark and DMC and the laser boots everything!! I am confused. Why would this happen? It was a heck of a lot cheaper than a new laser. Hope this can help someone else too. Thanks.

[mud ver.2]

MDV would be happy to hear that. But they banned his no-solder ass.

Usually, a clicking noise is related to poor media reflectivity. The clicking is the laser unit moving back and forth trying to read the disk.

Were you using the same backup with gameshark and swap magic ? What type of media are you using ?

[yankeesfan]

Thanks for the reply. I was using the same backup with Gameshark that I use now. I use Verbatim DVD-R recorded at 1X on a Pioneer A04. All backups run flawlessly on my V4 with Swap Magic and also on my V7 that has a Magic 2 chip.

I am not a no-solder geek by any means. I am just curious why the games boot with Swap Magic but no longer boot with GS/DMC.

[mud ver.2]

I've heard that Gameshark can act up, and needs to be reset to factory default settings to work as a swap disk again.

But I've never heard of it actually happening.

[Warlock]

This happens alot when the original dvd game gets scratched or damaged.