Faulty ps2 - help please

[skooby]

Guyz,

Hopefully one of you can help me. I fitted a magic 3 chip to someone's brand new V7 pal ps2 and everything worked fine. Two weeks later he returned it as it wouldnt load anything anymore, not even the demo disk that comes with it.

I thought it was probably the chip that was faulty so I fitted a new one, but no change. The chip that I removed I then fitted to another machine and it worked fine.

Even with the chip out the ps2 will still not load anything. I have checked all the fuses and they are ok.

Symptoms: when a disk is inserted there is a clicking noise as the laser tries to find the disk. It then spins fast and continues to spin and the browser screen comes up.

I have also checked/adjusted the pots on the drive to around 900 ohms.

I suspect the ps2 is faulty. If anybody can help, please do.


Skoob

[charlie_ps2]

To test if the PS2 is faulty, I suggest the following. Note that step 5 applies only if DVD movies won't load but games do.

1. Back out of the chip install in order to have the PS2 in reference state. If the test works, then your install has caused a problem.
   
2. Laser Optics can be incriminated if a substituted unit (if available) is fitted and works.
   
3. CD/DVD Controller: Boot the PS2 up with no disk inserted. You will see the Browser. Select "Browse" and you will see "No Data" displayed. Insert a DVD movie and see if the unit recognises the disk. If it does, you will see "VIDEO DVD" at the upper right corner of the screen which confirms that the unit can recognise the disk mode and hence idicates that in all probability the CD/DVD Controller is doing its job. If it does not recognise the DVD, and a substitute unit also fails, then it is likely to be CD/DVD Controller that is at fault. Your problem will be that step 2 is unlikely to be available to you. So it might yet be something physical on the laser unit. That sort of stuff is covered in the Messiah 2 TSG (which is equally applicable to Magic 3).
   
4. BIOS/Boot ROM: If we have passed the test at step 3, but the "PLAY" button for the DVD movies isn't seen (blank screen with no graphics) then the BIOS could be faulty. (If the modchip is still attached, then something could have bridged). The command to display "PLAY" would not have reached the processor.
   
5. EE chip: If the "PLAY" button is seen and the DVD movie is ready to play but it doesn't, and if your controller is functional, then you should suspect the main processing engine (EE).

All of the foregoing assumes a clean laser lens, clean disks, properly adjusted laser (hence step 2), no solder bridges or solder balls anywhere.

Bottom line, a DVD movie tests the main components to which the modchip s connected.