Saturn Sanyo drive laser replacement

[Zorator]

My U.S. Saturn with a Sanyo drive just stopped reading backups less than month after modding. Where can I get another? Is it even worth it to replace a Sanyo drive if I'm playing backups exclusively? I've found some threads on other boards that seem to say that the Sanyo boards(at least for U.S. consoles) aren't very reliable and are prone to dying out if you read backups with them. Is there any confirmation of this beyond anecdotes?

Everything was working fine till I accidentally left Radiant Silvergun on overnight a few nights ago. Could that have done it or was my console just a ticking time bomb?

[Zorator]

So apparently that was a false alarm, as my games are working again sort of. Now I'm getting freezing issues and very long load times. Although not actually dead yet, I suppose this is probably indicative of my laser dying out. I see there is a CD drive replacement guide on SegaStyle, but is there any way to fix an existing drive?(Sanyo in particular)

Any info whatsoever on using backups on Sanyo boards, or why they are more prone to dying out, or even just keeping a faulty laser alive in general would be appreciated.

[Zorator]

Okay, so now my Saturn works sometimes but not all the time. When it does work, it's only for a little while before the SFX and music start screwing up or the game itself stops running.

Unless I can find another working Sanyo CD drive, I'm going to have to sell it. Is it possible that retail games would still work fine?(I don't have any at the moment)

[ninjainspandex]

did you try cleaning the lens with some lens cleaner and a qtip? my saturn was in storage for awhile and it had a dusty lens but it would play retail games just fine but it had trouble reading burnt games. i guess it takes more laser strength to read burnt games i dunno but it fixed the problem.