How to Fix a CD Player

(An Amateur's Guide)

We have had a lot of dust in our house recently and our CD player stopped working. At first, I just cleaned the lens and then it would start working again. Eventually this stopped working and the CD player (which I paid $34 for 4 years ago) would not even recognize a disk (e.g. 'no disk' error). A brief search on the web revealed the following steps for fixing this condition, which is caused by the lens being misaligned (probably from my frequent cleanings). It worked perfectly, so I'm going to give them here as I performed them. I'd only recommend following my guidance if you have a really cheap CD player that you will otherwise throw away, since I'm no expert and can only tell you what worked for me.

1.	Clean CD Lens. This way you won't have to touch it after it is adjusted.
2.	Disassemble the CD player so that you can get to the lens mechanism under the CD.
3.	Find the adjustment potentiometer. This will be a small (usually black) knob with a slot in it. If you can't find this then you might as well put it back together or find another instructor because I can't help you. The potentiometer will probably have some sort of glue near it to hold it in one position. Insert your screwdriver and turn this knob a little bit, it should only need to be moved +/- 45º from its current position. How do you know which way to turn it? You don't, so put a CD in the player, turn it a little, see if it recognizes the CD, then try again. It took me six or seven adjustments (pretty much random) to get mine to work. Once it recognizes the CD, try removing it and replacing it, then try other CD's. If they all work you are done with this step.
4.	Reassemble the CD player. Enjoy the $30 you saved yourself in exchange for 30 minutes of your time!