I feel like a moron

[heltoupee]

Well, this is just venting mostly.

I decided that I wanted to mod my V12 PS2. I chose the Infinity, and they shipped it with a free "Neo XIV" laser fix. I've never installed a modchip before, persay, but know my way around soldering and electronics quite well.

So, proceed to the install. I jumped right into the Infinity install. Got done and booted the thing up, got the matrix logo, tested PS2 and PS1 games. Everything was fine - except it wouldn't read the disk to update the firmware. Searched around and found that I needed to check the joints on the CD interface (A, B, G, H, I). So apart the machine comes, and I redid all 5 of those and triple-checked, followed traces with a multimeter, they were fine.

Now, the part that sucks. While I had the box apart, I thought I'd put in that *explative* laser fix. So I did that - it was a little messy due to the fact that they want you to join the little laser fix board right to some diodes on the PS2 mainboard, but I ran continuity checks on the traces, and had every indication that I had done the install correctly.

So, I plug back in and nothing, the red standby light doesn't even come on. Now I remove the laser fix as best I can - diode came off with it that I re-attached, and checked very well. power back up and the red standby light comes on, and it will power on (light turns green), but now the CD drive just makes a few clicks and nothing. So I have been trobleshooting for the past several hours and am officially giving up. I'm just glad that the thing wasn't THAT important to me, and I didn't have much else invested in it (only had one game).

If anyone has any other ideas on where to go next, I'd love to hear them. I'm pretty sure that either I destroyed something when installing that laser fix, or that the laser fix fried something.

[N£TM£ÇH]

one of those resisters are busted.

[heltoupee]

Do you mean one of the resistors on the laser fix board, or one of the resistors on the mainboard?

If you mean one on the mainboard, then I believe they are diodes, and I would agree. I think I may have damaged one during the desoldering. Plus, the one that came off with the laser fix board had moved when I'd originally put it on. I shouldv'e used wires to jump the connections. It would've taken longer, but it may have worked. If it is a diode, maybe I should try turning it around the other way.

Anyway, of the four diodes that you have to connect the laser fix to, two of them have a voltage drop of about 1.2 volts and 2 have a drop of about .7 volts (after I f-ed it all up) I imagine the problem lies there, unless shorting some of the joints I mentioned earlier (A, B, G, H, I) causes the problems I described earlier.

I'm just pissed that I had the thing booting before, and now its hosed.

[spedmetal]

They are not diodes, they are resistors. What are the numbers on top of the resistors? If they are to damaged to tell you can measure them with your ohm meter unless you damaged them all together.

[heltoupee]

Hmmm... I thought I remember measuring them with the ohmmeter and getting open circuit readings. Then, I tested them with the diode setting, and got an open circuit one way, and a voltage drop the other way, but now that I think about it, I could be wrong.

Here is a diagram of the laser fix install. you can't see the numbers on the components very well on this picture either. At some point I may take it apart and post numbers to see if there is anyone out there that could help me with a repair.

I'm still wondering if looking into redoing the A,B,G,H,I solder points on the motherboard may help. I'm resonably sure that they're right, but...

[EspeN]

This is classic.. And i did the same shit lot of times.

1) remove this crappy laserfix completly
2) Remove the resistors on the motherboard that u attached the T1 and T2 too.
3) Replace them with 100k or 130k resisors as in this pic (thats my tumb)
www.spillchip.com/tracking.jpg

Its easier to add wire on each side of that small sucker and solder the wires onto the board than to replace it (but u need to remove the old ones anyways)

4) Check FUSE 11 too..

Check if the laser spin or if its only the laser diode. Coz if it dont spin at all, then it might be fuse, but if it spin little or slow, its prob the resistors.

Ive replaced about 10 machines with 100/130k resistors and never failed me.
The sony ones onboard are very crappy and get damaged super easy.

Ofcouse, if it dont work after u replace resistors, the laser might be dead.

[spedmetal]

Hmmm... I thought I remember measuring them with the ohmmeter and getting open circuit readings. Then, I tested them with the diode setting, and got an open circuit one way, and a voltage drop the other way, but now that I think about it, I could be wrong.

Hmmm well yeah this could be because they are damaged but they are for sure resistors.

[heltoupee]

spedmetal- They are resistors. I agree now. Must be busted, as is what I am hearing quite a bit of...

EspeN - Thank you for all your help - I really appreciate it.

OK, I've taken the top off, and started the thing up. With no disc in, the laser carraige moves in, and then the laser diode moves up and down a bit, like it's trying to get a lock on a disc. Disc motor does not move. With a disc in, I assume the laser carraige does the same thing, but the disk still does not spin. I think I saw it twitch a bit, but that's it.

So, I've killed some resistors, that's, I guess, obvious. What else have I done?

Should I be able to tell if the laser diode is on? Will there be visible light eminating from it? Will I be able to tell if I burnt it? I've burnt enough things in the lab to tell a fried IC (melting silicon) from a popped capacitor (vaporized dielectric) by smell. I smell neither of those. Could it be that I've busted both the power to the motor and to the laser?

Would this problem cause there to be no display out to the TV?

[heltoupee]

BUMP. Plus, where would one go to find surface-mount resistors as discussed above?

[mp3boy]

There's visible red light when the laser is on. It should flash at least once even with no disc in, but the disc motor won't move without a disc.

If you have no display out check the modchip connections, BGI and MNOPQTUVRW in case they are shorting with anything (IE the adjacent pad on M-W). If you can't find anything obvious, uninstall the chip and test video again.

You should be able to get the resistors from http://rswww.com - I think 232271111104 is the part number