Dead Controllers

[vancek]

Hey Gang,

I'm hoping to find some help with my dead controllers. This is a GH-017 motherboard. No modifications. I was playing the other day and went to put in a memory card. I got a pretty good static discharge on the controller port. None of the contollers work any more, I've tried 3. No light/power at all on the controllers. The PS2 seems to boot just fine, getting screen and spinning up the games, just no controllers.

I have checked continuity on all of the fuses, PS1 - PS13. I can't find any opens. What do I test and where do I go from here?

Thanks!
Vance

[DJGAIT]

Just some guesses.

There is a tiny pcb located on the controller port assembly. I assume you are aware with opening the ps2.

Check and/or replace this assembly to confirm if the pcb on it is faulty(sorry, im dutch).

Check the ribbon wire running from the coontroller assembly to the mainboard. Maybe it hasn't been attached that well and need reattachement . Flip up the plastic holder before you take out the cable. Confirm that the cable is not damaged.

It's too bad that you have opened your playstation. opening causes warranty to depleat. Since your playstation hasn't got any mods, i guess you opened it for the first time. You could have contacted Sony about this issue since you may assume that you can use memorycards normally.

My aims are at the assebly. try to get hold of a spare one. If with a full functioning assembly the controller just still wont work, its time to think about the power supply for the controllers, but that's off my knowledge. Anyone else??????

[vancek]

Correct, I opened it for the first time. I've had it for about 18 months, so I was pretty sure the warranty was out...maybe I'm mistaken. I thought there was only a 90 day warranty on these dudes.

From all the reading I did, I thought for sure it was probably just a fuse, so that's why I took to disassembling it and poking around.

Forgive me, what is a PCB? Is the PC Board? I glanced at it, but I didn't see anything obvious...nothing obviously scroched, browned, popped or bulging.

Anyone have a copy of the schematic for this bad boy with reference voltages for testing...?

Thanks again,
Vance

[DJGAIT]

PCB stands for Printed Circuit board (or Print Circuit board) in simple ways: The printboard. It's the green printboard attached to the assembly. The black ribbon cable runs to it.

See it as a tiny mainboard. On the PCB of the controller assembly sists a texas instruments chip wich converts the signals to usable input data for the playstation. It is protected by a Diode. A diode takes care that the current flows only one way (in example + flows to - and not the opposite way).

The discharge you had MAY have killed the texas chip, since the protection of the diode is on the mainboard side and not on the Texas chip side.

I don't know exactly if sony has changed the layout of the pcb when changing the layout for the ps2 mainboards (every mainboard is different and the mainboards of the v1 to v3 versions have a total different shape).