DVD Player

Sometimes, when you put a disk in your DVD player it grinds and clicks for a while and then grumpily says "No Disk", even when there clearly is a disk in there. Other disks don't work either. A Google search brings up various advice; from the optimistic "blow air into the tray" to the more helpful "clean the lens". Not being a fan of those Cleaning Disks (a CD with bristles attached), I opened up the case. There was some general fluff to remove and the lens looked clean, but I wiped it anyway with an alcoholled cotton swab. Disks still did not play. After puzzling for a while, I reasoned that the mechanism was working but the player was not receiving data from the disk, and the data should be coming out of the paper-thin ribbon cable that is attached to the laser assembly. On my player, this is attached with one of those slide-out-a-little plastic clips that grip the cable. After swab-cleaning and secure re-location into the socket, all was well. So I hope this shows up sometimes as an additional thing for tinkerers to try before reaching for the credit card.