PS3 disc read error Fix!

I've spent the last few weeks trying to fix my PlayStation 3. Apparently I had a dead blu-ray drive.  After searching the internet for hours for symptoms that matched my problem and cleaning the lens of the blu-ray drive, I figured out that it was a bad lens in the blu-ray drive that caused me so much grief.

This really shocked me since I thought by buying one of the original PS3's(20GB model), I was getting better hardware than the newer models. Then I remembered that every PlayStation that I have ever owned have all had the same problem. DISC READ ERROR! It seems pretty amazing that a $500 or $600 machine could have the same problems as a $300 machine from 11 years before.

So how do you know if you really have a bad lens?
There are three dead give aways to a bad lens. The first would obviously be no disc appearing on screen after a game is inserted. The second is a small circle at top right of the screen that never stops spinning. The third and most serious is when the disc appears not to be spinning, this signifies that the lens is bad.

How can the PS3 be fixed when it is out of warranty?
The only way to fix the disc read error is to buy another lens for your blu-ray drive and take apart the blu-ray drive to install the better lens. This is not a simple task to complete and that's assuming you found an affordable replacement lens. There are many videos on youtube that can help people with assembly and disassembly. Finding an affordable replacement will require patience. I can tell you that they range from $45 to about $80. I managed to get one for about $49, but I will not put the seller's information on this page. I refuse to give anyone free advertising, but I will be more than happy to tell where I got it through an e-mail.

In all it took me about two hours to replace the bad lens and have everything aligned and back in the right place. My PS3 works again!