Laurence Payne wrote:

My about 10 y.o. SONY har recently begun misbehaving, . . .

Make sure all sliding parts aren't sticking at the end of their range.
And make sure any rubber belts are clean and grease-free. Apart from
that, there's not much you can do without technical skills and
equipment. And if you had those, you wouldn't be asking here :-)

makes notes for possible pre-disassembly check

I see technical skills as educated ability - of which I must have some
of the latter, otherwise my previoud DIY jobs would have failed. What I
lack is a technical protocol, which Old Fart at Play further down
indicated existed on some web sites. Might Google a bit for them.

Is it a particularly wonderful player? The current sub-£100 Sonys are
really very good.

Not really - but in mint condition, and playing most of my CD collection
perfectly, it still seems to good to scrap.

--
T Sandvik // to send e-mail, remove clothes