Calibrating the LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray drive
Hi everyone,
I’m now at my 3rd LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray drive. The first one had its Blu-Ray laser die and the second one began having issues reading Blu-Ray discs. The 3rd one reads them faster. But what if I could have fixed the 2nd drive? That’s what we will be looking here.
This drive is not one of my favorite writers. It is not a good writer. Most of the discs I burn with it ends up having the so called “donut rings”, and some double layer discs are not burned correctly. However, this drive is a good reader and is why I use it, that is, when it works.
When I got my 3rd drive, I opened it along with the 2nd drive, and tried to see the distance between a disc and the laser:
My 2nd drive had the laser more close to the disc itself, which may be why it was failing to read discs or take some time to read it. It was also making the grinding noises this drive is known to do.
The drive motor has 2 screws on the side which can lower or increase the distance between the disc and the laser, so by adjusting it, I was able to get the 2nd drive to successfully read a disc on its first try without the noises:
This is a trial and error process. I recommend having a disc inside and move the optical pickup unit all the way to the back so you can have a better look. The optical pickup unit and the disc should have a distance approximately to this:
Keep in mind that if the disc is too close to the laser, it may scratch the disc and you may hear loud noises when it spins the disc, as it may be making contact with it. Just try to make it look like the above picture and it should proceed to work right away. Of course, each optical pickup unit has its own calibration data, but this seemed to work just fine on my drive and has not had any issues ever since.
Now, my 3rd drive is only used just as a backup, for when this 2nd drive starts having issues all over again. It has to be noted too that this 2nd drive has lasted way more than the 1st one did.
If it still doesn’t work, or you prefer to get another one, you can get it on Amazon at the following link:
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