Need Some Help Troubleshooting

[Midvalley]

Sup guys, I could use some help figuring out what I've messed up inside my ps2.

I ordered a chip, and in preparation decided to do the romeo mod because my console was a V9. Being a complete noob to the insides of the ps2, and not all that gifted with a soldering iron, it took me awhile but I got it done. Pin 17 of the LA6508 chip is isolated from the board, and soldered to the +5 via, is getting power and seems to be working fine.

After reassembling the unit, I tested it out with an original Devil May Cry 3 (chip is still on order), and the unit emitted a mechanical noise akin to gears slipping which almost made my heart stop in my chest. BUT, it went on to load the game with the exact same loading time, with no delays, skips, or foul ups. I played a couple minutes to test; and the noise was intermittant, but the game always worked beautifully. I saw a post on another board about a guy who had the same noise, but his machine didn't work at all, who corrected it by just simply redoing the mod. So that's what I did.

I used another length of 20awg wire with 60/40 .032 resin core solder, only this time I ran the wire down and around the laser cable as I saw in the "instructions" (I use the term loosely, a single "after" picture is all I can find for the v9) that are on the net. I hadn't done that the first time thinking it wouldn't matter. The only difference is that the only good install diagrams I could find were of a v10, and the v9 has two chips close to that slot on the underside of the board. So, I ran it close to those and back up onto the topside, clipped and stripped the excess wire, and soldered the new run to the via.

Now, the noise is still there but happens MUCH less frequently, and always at the same sections. If I was to reset the machine I would hear it initially, then when the unit gets to the dolby digital screen I would hear it again for a split second, and also at the game over screen. I tried loading a couple levels, my saved game, and playing for a couple minutes and it didn't reoccur during normal loading. That is an improvement over the original install, but I'd like to get it solved entirely.

Okay, now, on to what I may have done to screw it up. When I was reconnecting the laser assembly cable the first time the pressure from my inserting the cable caused the assembly to move; and I heard the gear slipping noise. There's also the likelyhood of a bad solder joint; since I have read about that causing the noise. But I don't know how likely that is since in all the other cases I have read about the ps2 just didn't work, and it would emit that noise. But mine seems to work perfectly. Based on what I've described I hope someone can give me a couple suggestions as to other possible causes of this, and hopefully some solutions.

Thanks for any help you guys can give, and hopefully the actual chip install will go smoother.

[Midvalley]

I started doing some tests on my own, and it seems the noise only occurs when the laser is doing certain tasks. I tested my theory with using an audio cd. Basically, when a song is played, if the disk is ejected the gear slipping noise will be present. However, if a disk is put in, and read, but you don't actually play any tracks on it you can eject without the noise occuring. I tested this by making the ps2 play the last track, to get the lens to move all the way to the inside of the cd, and then stopping playback and ejecting.

I'm guessing that the noise probably occurs when the unit is moving the lens out to the outer edge of the disk, or moving back to pickup data from an earlier section. If that's the case, then I doubt it would be any sort of voltage issue since it would take the same current draw to the move the lens regardless of direction. So then, I'm back to the fact I possibly screwed something up in the assembly then it shifted during the initial install.

[Midvalley]

Never mind, bent the arm down a bit so it made better contact with the worm gear and the problem is solved. All my searching was for problems relating to the romeo mod and the noise; I finally found out it was a common, unrelated, problem.

[kl1k]

if your a noob with the soldering iron, before fitting the mod chip I'd practice first on soldering on a old pcb. the soldering work on the ps2 is very delicate and you can easy turn your ps2 into a door stop if your not carefull.

[Midvalley]

That's pretty good advice, all in all. However, I'm not unfamilar with soldering, I just don't have very steady hands. That just means I have to a bit more careful than usual. I figure I'll do okay as long as I tin my wires, use some flux, and watch the heat. Just a matter of taking the time to make sure everything is done correctly.