Topic: If a Wii suddenly stops reading dual layer discs what's the real problem?

Dust or a faulty drive? I may be sending my Wii for a tune up soon and I'm just wondering if they actually relpace the existing drive or just clean it? Somehow I don't buy this theory of dust on the lense because I've cleaned mine several times and no matter what it won't read Smash bros brawl or Prime Trilogy. Nintendo just cleaning it seems pointless cause the problem would come back. On the other hand I can't see them replacing hundreds of drives for free just because it's a dual layer issue. It really sucks that I gotta send my Wii in for repair over two games when everything else works fine.

Had the same problem, although my wii did not read any discs at all. My guess is that they do that on purpose, they earn an extra 70 bucks with that.

Drives do get old. This happens to computer CD drives as well. They slowly die and then you have to buy a new drive as a replacement. If cleaning the lens doesn't help, then maybe you should research getting a new drive or asking Nintendo if they offer that service.

I know drives go bad but every other game works. So it's not completely trashed. It just doesn't read dual layer. It used to though. I was playing brawl for months with no problems.

I had same problem and Wii service centre replaced drive and returned within a week. It was in warranty so free-of-charge.

It's more likely a lens adjustment issue. Early DVD players had the same problem; I remember my 2nd gen Sony needed to be sent into the shop to get it tweaked because it stopped being able to read some discs properly (and this was before dual-layer ones appeared).

The pits on a DVD are much smaller than the ones on a CD which is why DVD players use a higher frequency red laser to read the discs as opposed to the infrared used in CD players. This means that discs cannot take as much surface damage as a CD before having read issues. For dual layer the lense must refocus at an angle to read the second layer of the disc; I would imagine that some of the optical drives Nintendo shipped in the Wii have some minor issue that needs a tweak and they don't feel a recall is necessary.

In my case it was only dust, Nintendo cleaning kit fixed it.

Thats mean u r screw.