oops! neo12

[nickbuhl]

I went to install a NEO12 on my buddy's v9. Without reading the instructions fully, I applied hot glue and stuck it. But then I saw I was supposed to tin the bottom pads and mount directly to the board. D'oh! Long story short, I rigged it up anyway since it was stuck. (I thought of using a blowdryer later that night) Powered up, cd tray shot out immediately, no display at all. Opened it up, 2 things: (1)power and two signal cables had been mashed somewhat...its possible they didn't short, but I could see the wire under a thin remains of insulation in one spot. (2)Its possible that I bridged some pads directly underneath the chip when I rigged it. Of particular suspicion would be the short, braided wire I used for ground. One little strand could have been on a nearby pad. I'm sure I didn't totally bridge the piss out of everything, I'm not a novice solderer. I removed the glue with the blowdryer and re-mounted it correctly, replaced said wires from problem 1).
Now the ps2 won't play any discs at all: I hear no activity in the drive. I double-checked the ribbon cable connections.
I know the next step is remove the chip, see if all is ok. I'm hoping someone can tell me if I damaged a chip based on my symptoms.

[Thinkdiff]

if there's no motor spin, it's likely the LA chip may have blown out. Remove the chip and see if you're still having problems.

[nickbuhl]

Thanks Thinkdiff, I'll remove the chip as soon as that buddy brings home a heatgun. In the meantime, can someone suggest a good website to order chips from? I've used mod-chip.com twice now. I browsed through this forum a little, saw no talk of a MARS3 chip. That's the one I installed successfully, all 27 wires. Will my friend run into problems later with that MARS chip? From what I read, I should get Magic chips.

[Thinkdiff]

You should get Matrix or Crystal Chips.. those are the two main ones on this site. I personally stand by the Matrix chips 100%.. they work great on all models. I also highly recommend the Duo 2SE chip. Very solid and cheap.

I use www.xmodds.com. Fast shipping, fairly cheap. Good customer support.

[nickbuhl]

Those look like nice chips, where can I get them a little cheaper?

[pelzi]

Be careful with the heatgun...you can ruin the whole board very easily.
Luckily I have access to a Pace ThermoTweez tool, 20 seconds and a LA comes off without a single bad board.

[nickbuhl]

Guys I'm somewhat of a newb to ps2 and xbox, I always preferred my pc for gaming. However, I'm reading this site steadily. Questions: Where can I find directions for the romeo mod? Every thread I find just mentions it. I still have one new neo12 chip, should I grind it into dust? I need to check the LA and the fuses in the lower left of the board, right? I read that these are little boxes. Laser resistors are supposed to be 4.9 and 5 Ohms, but where is a guide to this procedure? Is there a complete guide to troubleshooting somewhere? I just don't know what to look for on those 2 R's because I assume bad boys rape...does no good with these. Thanks for the replies fellas!

[pelzi]

The fuse is a small box with a number printed on it. It should read 0 ohms, if more it is blown (and probably so is the LA chip or whatever else it is protecting).
In that case you probably have bad laser coils too. NEVER EVER put a new laser on a ps2 you suspect of a bad LA chip, or put a new LA chip on a ps2 with bad laser coils. Both will just blow again.
The romeo fix is just 1 wire, and I even found a link on this board earlier today, but lost it already. The purpose is to lower the voltage to the LA chip, so it will not burn out so easily.
The whole LA chip failure is all about the bad laser coils and the stupid design of the LA chip giving the coils all the power they want, so they eventually burn, taking even more current and at one point the LA chip just can't take the extra load and blows(again, the romeo fix prevents it because when there is less voltage, there is less current and the LA doesn't blow).
I usually measure the laser coil resistance at the laser unit itself - there are other pints too, but they are a)smaller and b)some are on the mainboard, which makes them bad choices for accurate measurements (see note at the end of post). Here's how: remove the black plastic cover from the laser unit (be careful not to snap the clips, use a small screwdriver for help), and look at the lens. It has 4 gold-colored wires connected to the coils around it. On the other end of the wires there is a plastic part. On the other side of the plastic part there are 4 soldered connections, arranged in two pairs. Measure the resistance of each pair (you may have to apply some pressure with the meter probes). Anything near 5 ohms, or higher, is good, lower than 4 is bad. You can often see that the bad the coils have a darker color, and maybe even some bubbles of the insulation varnish used when manufacturing them. It shows how hot they become because of the fault.
But there is one catch here - remove the laser ribbon cable from the mainboard while doing the measurement. If the LA chip is bad, it will make the laser resistances read lower than they really are! (you can actually use this to your advantage. If connecting the ribbon cable back to the mainboard lowers the resistance considerably, you can be rather sure you have a bad LA chip.)

[nickbuhl]

You friggin' rock pelzi...Looking at the site Thinkdiff provided, I like the duo2se at $15. Maybe later on I can do some matrix and others. I'm still a little hesitant to use that neo12 without more research into romeo. Two quick questions: 1)I see pictures of wires running along the copper edge of the board, I believe that is ground...isn't that a bad idea? (squish, zap) 2) My instructions show the Vcc wire as very long across the board. I know the ground should be short and is the first consideration in placement of the chip. Should Vcc be short too? Sorry for all the lame questions, I'm just getting to the meat of my BSEE.

[pelzi]

1)Yep. You have to be careful since the metal shield has contacts touching the grounds and wires can be squashed between them. It isn't as bad as it sounds, wires connecting to ground rarely really break something, but of course the install won't work.
2)Vcc isn't really that critical, but it is advised to use thicker wire to keep the power quality good. The ground is a different matter altogether, as it is a return for all the signal wires, and the Vcc too. If the ground wire is long or too thin, the whole chip will "float" at a higher potential and the signals will be full of noise and other crap.