Xbox 360 DVD Drive Pot Tweak

Xbox 360 DVD drive “pot” tweak

This Blog post is going to cover the Xbox 360 DVD drive “pot” tweak and how to perform it on your Hitachi, Benq, Samsung, or Liteon Xbox 360 DVD drive.

If you are getting:

• Unrecognized Disc Errors
• Tray open errors
• Dirty disk errors
• Your games are crashing in the middle of game play due to reading errors
• Your movies are skipping and jumping while playing

Tweaking the Xbox 360 DVD drive laser diode potentiometer may help. This might be because the DVD drive just needs a small tweak to get the DVD laser diode potentiometer to its sweet spot. The laser diode seems to weaken with time and use.  Remember to first inspect the disc thoroughly and test the disk on another console if possible, to make sure that it’s not the disk itself. You want to try all possibilities before you tweak your laser. First you will need to disassemble the Xbox 360. If it is still under warranty, I would suggest contacting Microsoft and possibly sending it in for a free repair.

  The purpose of this tweak is to expand the usable lifespan of your Xbox 360 DVD drive

•   PLEASE REMEMBER: this is not a tweak that will fix issues with the game disks that have been abused and are scratched beyond recognition by the drive. Although it may help with minor scuffed disks, if game is trashed, then it is trashed!! No pot tweaking or any other thing besides replacement or resurfacing will fix it.
•   DO NOT EVER lower the resistance to your laser diode if you’re not having disk read issues, as it shortens the lifespan of your laser.

Disassemble the Xbox 360 and remove the DVD drive from the motherboard. Remove the four screws holding the case of the DVD drive together and open the DVD drive.

If you have a Light-on or Ben-Q DVD drive, this is all the disassembly you need to do. If you have a Hitachi or Samsung DVD drive, you will need to remove the circuit board from the bottom of the DVD drive so you can access the pot dials. To do this, simply remove the two connecting ribbons, and gently pull back the tabs holding the circuit board in place. You should be able to easily remove it. Do not force it!

•   You will only need two tools to perform this adjustment. These tools are a multimeter that can read ohms (Ω), and a 2mm screwdriver. The ”Pot” adjustments will be very small, moving it a hair can make a big difference. We want to make small adjustments. We use small adjustments and then read the changed resistance with a multimeter after every adjustment.
•   Don’t just crank you laser diode down to 3KΩ!! lower it by .2KΩ to .5KΩ increments, and then test until the disks that once gave you reading issues no longer do.
• Do not attempt to do this tweak without a multimeter! You have to measure your adjustments! Remember the purpose of this tweak is to extend the usable life of your Xbox 360 DVD drive. Do not risk blowing the laser diode in the first 15 min of using a game in it. That would defeat the purpose of this tweak.
• All the dials that adjust the DVD laser and pots are located on the left, (refer to the pictures) and will be the same when you are physically looking at them.
• Measure resistance with a multimeter between the two spots that are marked in red.
• Set the multimeter to 20KΩ.

  Turn only the dials that are circled in red!!

• All drives are different and no 2 drives will have the same base resistance on the DVD pot.
• Most drives I’ve seen have seem to be factory set at anywhere between 4KΩ to 6.4KΩ.
• I highly recommend not lowering the resistance to your DVD laser diode below 3KΩ, this is the lowest resistance that is safe before you risk blowing the diode out in a very short amount of time.
• Take note to what way I instruct to turn the pot to decrease the resistance value of the pot. It differs between Liteon/Benq and Hitachi/Samsung
• Lowering the resistance value of the pot increases the power of the laser, but may shorten the lifespan of the laser if done aggressively 
• All Drives DVD pots are located on the left in the pictures, and will be the same when you are physically looking at them.
•  Liteon/Benq laser Pots are accessed from the top of the drive, Ejecting the tray before tweaking will make this easier.
• Hitachi/Samsung laser pots are accessed from the bottom of the drive, you will have to remove the circuit board to tweak these.

Good luck gamers and I hope this lesson in Xbox 360 repair has made your life easier for the time being. If the pot tweak does not resolve your DVD drive issue, You can order a new DVD drive here. You will need to send your old drive in or email me with your dvd key if you have it!! Game On and Level Up!!