My 5-disc cd player was skipping in centre of discs and at the end of discs, I tried cleaning the laser eye, adjusting the pot but no improvement. While examining the gears for dirt with a magnifier I noticed black on the frame where the laser assembly rides back and forth as it plays and searches for tracks. I cleans off the dirt (carbon?) with a bit of oil on q-tip then moved the assembly back and forth by hand to clean the bottom of the assembly. It cured the tracking problem. Its like new. I saved myself couple hundred bucks.
Fred
February 2008