PS2 disc skips and freezes on songs

[OutPhase]

I have bought a copy of Rock Band for the Playstation 2 that had skipped and freezing on Pleasure (Pleasure) and Go with the Flow. I returned it for a new disc, and I played those two songs again, and they STILL froze up and skipped. I went on the site for replacement stuff, but much to my dismay, there was nothing about replacing a glitchy disc, and I do not feel like trading it in several times until I get a working copy, and I cannot get a refund because of Walmart's craptacular policy involving visual/musical media.

Is this a horrible coincidence or are other people having the same problem, and is there anything I can do other than to be doomed trading in the copy day-after-day? I know it's not the PS2 itself since it can read other games perfectly.

[OutPhase]

Bringing up my post.

[tekwizrd]

Rockband for PS2 keeps locking up during different songs. We played it for a day without a problem. Now it periodically freezes. We can pause the game, but it still is sluggish when we unpause. We have to restart the song to unfreeze. In some cases cannot complete a song. We have not been able to complete Ballroom Blitz at all. That one locks up every time. One time at 98%! I am hopeful you have a fix for this please. I also noticed that it loaded extremely slower than other games. The disk surface doesn't appear to have any issues with it. I have seen a couple of others that have posted this as well. Please help! :confused:
Thank you!!

[Lionsfan1960]

Over 60% of the songs my family attempted froze up while we were playing. While the forum threads I've read suggest the laser may be mis-aligned, I am skeptical as other games have not frozen on this machine. We re-hooked and re-booted the console but the problems persisted.
To reduce stress on the console's processor, we unplugged the microphone, to no avail. I hope we can find the answer. We were geeked to snag a ps2 bundle, but the sounds of frustration from my daughters as the malfunctions mounted erased almost all that good feeling.

[Gavin]

I am having the exact same problem on my fat PS2. I bought RB on 1/11 from a Future Shop, when I got it home more than half of the songs would not play without skipping and then eventually freezing.

I tried to return it to the same store two days later but they would not take it back because of their return policy for opened software. They did let me exchange the game itself for a new one, but I had the same issues with that one when I got home.

I have run the auto-diagnosis tool and that did nothing. There is no way I am paying $65 or whatever it is in Canada to replace the laser on my PS2. I submitted a comment on the EA customer support website and they replied with their canned answer of 'try the auto-diagnosis if that doesn't work then check the disk if the disk is fine than its your PS2.' It seems however that way to many people are having the same problem for it to be a problem with my PS2.

Anyways, i'm fed up with the whole thing and I just want to return everything, does anybody know how I can go about doing that?

Thanks