Just won a Panasonic RX-DT707 on ebay, it arrived this week, the write up said "everything working perfectly", but it wasn't, put a cd in and it played for about a minute then skipped back to about 30 seconds and continued to do so.

Tried another cd and the same thing happened again, tried going forward to another track and it just made a noise as if it couldn't find the track.

I then dismantled it to look at the cd player, nothing obvious! cleaned the cd lens then reassembled it. Still the same problem.

Any ideas anybody?

Sorry I diddnt get back to you on this but I Have no parts availeble I had to buy 3 of these before i actually had one that fully works...

Are you trying to play CD-Rs or CD-RWs in this box? I know it's not vintage, but some mechs may have problems with these discs. Of course, if it mentions CD-R/W compatibility in the user manual, just ignore me :-)

OTOH, I've had quite a lot of luck with a number of responses when I encounter dodgy CD or DVD mechs:

1) Are the slide rails well lubricated? Often, especially in warm boxes, the grease dries out and hardens, and the laser head can't track much away from its starting position, or finds it hard to track all but the cleanest, most concentric discs. Cleaning the rails with isopropyl alcohol and regreasing them with a low-viscosity grease or medium viscosity oil can work wonders. Don't need much lube either.

2) Is the laser head block parallel with the underside of the disc? I've seen some which have drifted miles off level, thereby taking the laser out of its focus range. I've fixed CD players, DVD players and PC DVD drives this way, usually by eyeball alone.

3) Are the slide rails worn (assuming it's not a swing-arm mech)? If they are, rotating them 180 degress will take the worn, rough part out of the laser head's way (as it sits on the top of the rail).

4) Have you tried disconnecting the ribbon cable from the laser head at the end where it goes into the socket on its PCB, and spraying it with contact cleaner? This quite often works.

5) Has the disc platter slipped down the motor spindle? Does happen. If you load a disc into the mech and watch the laser head from the side (don't get the laser light in your eyes!), if the laser lens moves a long way up of down as it tries to play the first 30 seconds or so, it might suggest the platter needs to be moved up of down the spindle. For example, if the lens moves down a couple of millimetres from its resting position and stays low as the disc is playing, raise the disc platter by a couple of millimetres to compensate.

Hope some of this might be of help.

Cheers, Jon.