PS2 Operation Complete, missing some skin on my finger...
--- super happy funtime edit
SUPER Success, friends and allies. This is an edit. I am sitting here with Baldur's Gate 2 in the PS2, and I got a weird feeling. Put your hand on the PS2, Ray so I did. That minute pressure cut the sound down over 75-80 percent, if not even 90%. It seems the fliptop lid flops a bit around without the pressure keeping it in place, in turn keeping the disc cap pressed near enough the disc to make it not go crazy. How about that? I ended up sticking a tissue box on top of the PS2's new flip top lid and it works like a charm now compared to before, only slightly more noise than without the fliptop installed. Hooray!!!
--- original post
Hooray! The dirty deed is done and it was mostly a flaming success. Should you wish to continue learning about my awesome night last night, please do continue
As many of you have heard me ramble about, I have some Pal PS2 games that I has as of yet been unable to play except briefly on the PS2 emulators. Pal is a tricky monkey for us NTSC folks and many fail miserably at supporting it. The problems posed are many. First, the console is region locked by those fine fiends at Sony who fail to bring certain games over to these shores for us to play. The least you could do guys, is let us play all region games. How many normal street folks walking into a Wal-Mart are really going to decide not to buy your drivel new and instead find some cheaper foreign copy? Really... So, getting the disc to load at all is task 1. Then finding a way to get the signal playing on your display properly. I thought my TV said it did it, but I was wrong. Bah. I found solutions either way, mostly.
There are several ways to address issue 1, loading the disc. If you don't care what they are skip this part and scroll down.
I have researched these for years now, as our PS2 works mostly like a champ and I was afraid of killing it. Each method poses some issues yet can be a solution for different people. I lack much confidence in opening our game systems, and have only opened the Sega Saturn before this to duct tape a door release mechanism for loading copies using the swap method, and snapped tabs off the SNES and n64 for playing my Japanese carts. Soldering for me is mostly fail. I also do not want to spend a lot having someone else solder. It has to be cost effective.
I chose the fliptop since I was way concerned about soldering or having others solder in a chip, and cheap. The memor32 was going to be my first choice but it turned out to not support as much as I wanted right out of the box for $60 plus shipping (after having a friend run tests on discs with his). You had issues loading other ISOs and it will only patch DVD games from what I have been told by my Ohio spy. So, that failure of dreams behind me, I figured the fliptop was the least damaging method for me. We have a model 4 era fat body PS2. Had we a slim it might have been quicker and quieter. Some model slims are much easier to slap a fliptop in, and had I wanted to exchange the whole case, it would have been a nightmare.
I started by popping out the screw covers on the bottom of my PS2. I had ordered a top case with fliptop door and Swap Magic 3.6 discs (one for CD and one for DVD games). It was cheap enough from some Canadaville overstock site and arrived quickly. However, it lacked any instructions so I did a lot of YouTube research first. I learned some very interesting things, mostly what not to do.
This is the bottom of the open console. You will notice the controller ports, the back fan, and on the right side the covered disc drive. That top flat part of the disc box if you will, with the yellow warning sticker, is what keeps your disc spinning straight and without much noise, with the help of a little white buffer cap of sorts as well. It also keeps you from getting to the inside to hand swap the disc out.
Here is the top of the open console, with the flex ribbon carrying the ever-vital controls back to the rest of the console. Slicing this would have been a bad thing and my PS2 may never have come back on. That extreme angle is the way the cable was, before I even messed with it. The ribbon was taped to the inside of the case. Three things here get moved to the new case:
Everything has been swapped over to the new fliptop case, and the extremely delicate (for me) task of getting the flex ribbon back in place as I close the case back up is still a ways away, but it is ever on my mind. :(
I had a bit of an emergency of sorts. Once inside the PS2 (it requires normal Phillips head bit to get inside), I still had to get that top cover off. As you see, I could not find my screwdriver set and attempted to use these two damaged flathead bits I found in my toolbox. It only partially worked and one last screw remained. It wouldn't budge, so I had to go out.
Family Dollar had a $1 set of screwdrivers, which was good since they are only 3 blocks away and I had a couple dollars in cash. No need to swipey swipey the debit card. As you see, they should do the job.
As this photo shows, I got that top off. But you will notice, the screw did not come out after all. I even tore a small bit of skin off trying to turn the bastard. That photo did not come out though. Fail. So, that is what it looks like without the top in place. I should say this top does more than you realize. The fat body PS2 does not grip the disc like the slim or other consoles, it sort of sits on there and the laser mechanism moves closer. So without it there, the disc sort of spins about like a loud mad priest with werewolf hands (Father Ted reference).
Everything is back together and yet untested. I am not feeling too confident it will come back on as I had to fight with it carefully to get the flex ribbon in place and everything to sit flush again. The PS2 just wanted to remind me that I had broken to sacred Sony commandment. Thou shalt not open me. I touched the flex ribbon a bit while trying to keep it out of the way of the closing case and heard a sound I did not like at one point...it scared me.
The PS2 came back on! Hooray! *cheers and does a happy dance* The question is will it spit the drive out, still load regular discs, and properly load other discs? This is an issue that does not always happen properly after this sort of reassembly for some people.
Great! The drive spits out when I say too, though I already notice more noise from it with that top cover missing. It works as it's supposed to, though I note that reset no longer works. Bah...when do I ever need reset? :/
This is what the console now looks like if I were to have the lid open and the drive door open. Strange days, my friend. Of course, you cannot have the fliptop door open when you insert a disc if putting a disc in the bottom. This is because naturally, it will now spin around and off the PS2 disc mechanism without that top cover and white buffer cap you see. With the lid down it works, but loudly. :)
Now, here's where I got really blah. The sound was tiresome as the drive was never that loud before even though it had been getting louder as it grew older. We have had the console for years now. The reset button was no more. What else could go wrong? Well, I could not for the life of me get the original copy PAL games I own to load up. I was making a mistake, since my discs came with no instructions whatsoever and I had failed to read the website FAQ. I had been selecting PAL for video on the menu when Normal failed to work. This made the TV tell me it no longer received a signal and the PS2 was quiet. I tried Special Load which has you hit the [square] button rather than the [x] button in the software loader, and when I swapped cables to composite (I was using component before that) I managed to get black and white video on the screen.
Black and white video made me recall my initial days of playing Atari 2600 and NES. Our color TV had lost its sound so we only had monochrome TVs to use for years. Until sometime in 1992 or 1993 when my aunt gave us a small color TV. Our first and only for a few more years until we got used and floor model TVs on the cheap. However, there was also the issue of Y position. PAL does not render well on NTSC TVs not only in the color, but the vertical positioning, due to the frequency difference of our TVs and also the additional data in a PAL signal. There just is more to display in a PAL signal that our TV doesn't know what to do with, and my TV does not let me adjust the video position of the composite/svideo/component/hdmi connections, only the vga input.
I was getting weary and sad, thinking I had made a huge mistake. I was really not happy. I decided I would at least try a burned disc. I quickly tossed an ISO of Jp PS2 Bomberman Battles on the PC and burned it off in Alcohol 120% and the disc loaded the first time. Japanese discs are NTSC, so there was no issue of video signal or frequency difference. Only the language barrier and as it turned out, the memory card being full. I couldn't yet understand why the PS2 was yelling at me in Japanese but I figured it was something about saving. So, upside. At the very least, I should be able to play the Japanese versions of the games I wanted to play, which would be several titles, but PAL would require work and maybe ISO patching to get the signal working right on our TV. Ugh.
I loaded up some AfterDawn forum posts I had read before, and a comment finally caught my eye. It turns out I was using the Magic Swap modes wrong. You are supposed to select NTSC and then [square] button for Special Load, not PAL. I was thinking it was asking what type of disc it was, though that menu option was really telling you what mode of video it would attempt to shit out at your PS2. Success! After trying both composite and component cables to check they worked fine, I got some results that were very satisfactory. I could now load my original PAL games! :D Hooooooray!
This first one is Bomberman Kart obviously. I had the TV on fill mode to stretch the image as I really hate 4:3 picture most times on the 16:9 widescreen size display. :( You cannot really notice here, but the Y position is lower than it should be if this were an NTSC game, by about 50-100 pixels maybe? Something like that. It is fine in most circumstances, as you can blindly go through the lower menu options by trial and error. In classic battle mode on this of the next game to be shown, it does chop off the bottom row of game zone where people are running around, so you cannot see what powerups you are getting in that last alleyway. lol There is no vertical centering option that I have found yet either. So, mild blah, but overwhelming cheers, heard over the now loud PS2, ever mindful to remind me that I opened it and took out some of its rude bits. :D
This is Bomberman Hardball, the PAL release of the Japanese original Bomberman Battles. The TV was set to normal display to show the difference in the two modes on the overall picture. You can quite clearly see that part of the game is cut off the screen. It only affects some menus and the aforementioned battle mode, though I have not investigated completely yet. This game has bombers in baseball, tennis, and golf. The normal low speed carts are horribly slow, but the highest end class of carts initially opened up is pretty cool. Baseball is fun, and tennis is also, though I can't run for shit in tennis with the low level stat character I was using. Got pounded by the AI.
So, as you see, I succeeded overall in my mission. Some noise, a failed button, some missing flesh, and some kinks to work out, but overall it's cool. There are solutions to be had, naturally. I can patch ISOs of the European games (to keep the English support) with a PAL to NTSC conversion app that also has a Vertical centering feature. It does not work on every game, but it might work on these two. I can also get a gameshark or other cheat device and try some misc found codes for the games to convert from PAL and Vertical center. One of these two might work, though I'm in no position to track down a $30 or more gameshark/other disc right away.
The possibilities for more disc support is now wide open though, and even helps the noise issue a bit. If I get an external harddrive that is supported or stick a supported harddrive in a USB enclosure or internally (not likely, I don't want to open the PS2 again anytime soon), and the HDLoader/other USB apps, the ISOs will load off it and cut down the disc loading required. The only loading would be the initial booting of any discs to boot the harddrive contents up. This poses its own unique challenges as each game works differently with the method, some do not at all, and I'd need to read more FAQs and forum posts, use a bit of trial and error, and of course, find the money to drop on this down the road. It's something to think about, but not quite yet. I really don't have a ton of games I want to find and play. Mostly just some karaoke titles from Japan and Europe, and the Bomberman games to see how well I like them before I can afford to buy them. The top games I will be looking for include SingStar Bollywood (which went off sale on Amazon so it back up in price), Karaoke Revolution anime editions, the Disney SingStar with actual disney movie songs, and a few others. If I like them I will buy them, but slowly as I find good deals, not at new price.
Hope you enjoyed my PS2 tangent. Feel free to ramble about how bad a person I am for opening my PS2 and downloading games to try before I buy them. :P If I could buy the games here I would have done so by now. Shipping from Europe and Japan is not always cheap and deals come and go. :( I try to be a good legit consumer but the deck is stacked against me, and likely you as well, as some content is just not available here without trickery. Maybe I'll find a cheap PAL display sometime or get a better PC just for using as a capture card that will allow me to shift the screen around to fit everything on the monitor. Don't know how likely that is. The new PC can do it somewhat but the quality of the composite signal is horrid. I need a component capture card. Where is my component capture card?!?
Either way. I am a champ this day, sirs and ladies. I hope you all are doing well.
SUPER Success, friends and allies. This is an edit. I am sitting here with Baldur's Gate 2 in the PS2, and I got a weird feeling. Put your hand on the PS2, Ray so I did. That minute pressure cut the sound down over 75-80 percent, if not even 90%. It seems the fliptop lid flops a bit around without the pressure keeping it in place, in turn keeping the disc cap pressed near enough the disc to make it not go crazy. How about that? I ended up sticking a tissue box on top of the PS2's new flip top lid and it works like a charm now compared to before, only slightly more noise than without the fliptop installed. Hooray!!!
--- original post
Hooray! The dirty deed is done and it was mostly a flaming success. Should you wish to continue learning about my awesome night last night, please do continue
As many of you have heard me ramble about, I have some Pal PS2 games that I has as of yet been unable to play except briefly on the PS2 emulators. Pal is a tricky monkey for us NTSC folks and many fail miserably at supporting it. The problems posed are many. First, the console is region locked by those fine fiends at Sony who fail to bring certain games over to these shores for us to play. The least you could do guys, is let us play all region games. How many normal street folks walking into a Wal-Mart are really going to decide not to buy your drivel new and instead find some cheaper foreign copy? Really... So, getting the disc to load at all is task 1. Then finding a way to get the signal playing on your display properly. I thought my TV said it did it, but I was wrong. Bah. I found solutions either way, mostly.
There are several ways to address issue 1, loading the disc. If you don't care what they are skip this part and scroll down.
- You can chip it, or solder in a chip capable of loading misc discs.
- You can perform a memory card exploit that allows loading more.
- You can use the Memor32 memory card after its firmware has been upgraded to load patched discs of its own, using a DVD movie sort of exploit I believe.
- You can use the slide tool which opens the drive while it's still inside the PS2, in conjunction with Swap Magic or other disc boot software.
- You can install a fliptop case that allows you to open the case without resetting or turning off the console in order to get the disc out and swap another in, used in conjunction with Swap Magic and its brethren.
- You can avoid discs all together and use HDLoader and its new incarnations for internal and external USB harddrives full of images and homebrew apps.
- You can leave your case open and remove the top over the disc while the system is on, then put the top back on after the new disc is in.
- Lastly, you can stick plastic and so forth in sensor locations to trick the PS2 into complying.
I have researched these for years now, as our PS2 works mostly like a champ and I was afraid of killing it. Each method poses some issues yet can be a solution for different people. I lack much confidence in opening our game systems, and have only opened the Sega Saturn before this to duct tape a door release mechanism for loading copies using the swap method, and snapped tabs off the SNES and n64 for playing my Japanese carts. Soldering for me is mostly fail. I also do not want to spend a lot having someone else solder. It has to be cost effective.
I chose the fliptop since I was way concerned about soldering or having others solder in a chip, and cheap. The memor32 was going to be my first choice but it turned out to not support as much as I wanted right out of the box for $60 plus shipping (after having a friend run tests on discs with his). You had issues loading other ISOs and it will only patch DVD games from what I have been told by my Ohio spy. So, that failure of dreams behind me, I figured the fliptop was the least damaging method for me. We have a model 4 era fat body PS2. Had we a slim it might have been quicker and quieter. Some model slims are much easier to slap a fliptop in, and had I wanted to exchange the whole case, it would have been a nightmare.
I started by popping out the screw covers on the bottom of my PS2. I had ordered a top case with fliptop door and Swap Magic 3.6 discs (one for CD and one for DVD games). It was cheap enough from some Canadaville overstock site and arrived quickly. However, it lacked any instructions so I did a lot of YouTube research first. I learned some very interesting things, mostly what not to do.
This is the bottom of the open console. You will notice the controller ports, the back fan, and on the right side the covered disc drive. That top flat part of the disc box if you will, with the yellow warning sticker, is what keeps your disc spinning straight and without much noise, with the help of a little white buffer cap of sorts as well. It also keeps you from getting to the inside to hand swap the disc out.
Here is the top of the open console, with the flex ribbon carrying the ever-vital controls back to the rest of the console. Slicing this would have been a bad thing and my PS2 may never have come back on. That extreme angle is the way the cable was, before I even messed with it. The ribbon was taped to the inside of the case. Three things here get moved to the new case:
- The button assembly controls with attached flex ribbon wiring. (bottom left)
- The memory card spring-backed doors (bottom right)
- What appeared to me to be some manner of grounding plate but what it really is I don't know. It was taped against the case and a screw runs through it. The new case had a place for it, so I moved it as well. (upper left)
Everything has been swapped over to the new fliptop case, and the extremely delicate (for me) task of getting the flex ribbon back in place as I close the case back up is still a ways away, but it is ever on my mind. :(
I had a bit of an emergency of sorts. Once inside the PS2 (it requires normal Phillips head bit to get inside), I still had to get that top cover off. As you see, I could not find my screwdriver set and attempted to use these two damaged flathead bits I found in my toolbox. It only partially worked and one last screw remained. It wouldn't budge, so I had to go out.
Family Dollar had a $1 set of screwdrivers, which was good since they are only 3 blocks away and I had a couple dollars in cash. No need to swipey swipey the debit card. As you see, they should do the job.
As this photo shows, I got that top off. But you will notice, the screw did not come out after all. I even tore a small bit of skin off trying to turn the bastard. That photo did not come out though. Fail. So, that is what it looks like without the top in place. I should say this top does more than you realize. The fat body PS2 does not grip the disc like the slim or other consoles, it sort of sits on there and the laser mechanism moves closer. So without it there, the disc sort of spins about like a loud mad priest with werewolf hands (Father Ted reference).
Everything is back together and yet untested. I am not feeling too confident it will come back on as I had to fight with it carefully to get the flex ribbon in place and everything to sit flush again. The PS2 just wanted to remind me that I had broken to sacred Sony commandment. Thou shalt not open me. I touched the flex ribbon a bit while trying to keep it out of the way of the closing case and heard a sound I did not like at one point...it scared me.
The PS2 came back on! Hooray! *cheers and does a happy dance* The question is will it spit the drive out, still load regular discs, and properly load other discs? This is an issue that does not always happen properly after this sort of reassembly for some people.
Great! The drive spits out when I say too, though I already notice more noise from it with that top cover missing. It works as it's supposed to, though I note that reset no longer works. Bah...when do I ever need reset? :/
This is what the console now looks like if I were to have the lid open and the drive door open. Strange days, my friend. Of course, you cannot have the fliptop door open when you insert a disc if putting a disc in the bottom. This is because naturally, it will now spin around and off the PS2 disc mechanism without that top cover and white buffer cap you see. With the lid down it works, but loudly. :)
Now, here's where I got really blah. The sound was tiresome as the drive was never that loud before even though it had been getting louder as it grew older. We have had the console for years now. The reset button was no more. What else could go wrong? Well, I could not for the life of me get the original copy PAL games I own to load up. I was making a mistake, since my discs came with no instructions whatsoever and I had failed to read the website FAQ. I had been selecting PAL for video on the menu when Normal failed to work. This made the TV tell me it no longer received a signal and the PS2 was quiet. I tried Special Load which has you hit the [square] button rather than the [x] button in the software loader, and when I swapped cables to composite (I was using component before that) I managed to get black and white video on the screen.
Black and white video made me recall my initial days of playing Atari 2600 and NES. Our color TV had lost its sound so we only had monochrome TVs to use for years. Until sometime in 1992 or 1993 when my aunt gave us a small color TV. Our first and only for a few more years until we got used and floor model TVs on the cheap. However, there was also the issue of Y position. PAL does not render well on NTSC TVs not only in the color, but the vertical positioning, due to the frequency difference of our TVs and also the additional data in a PAL signal. There just is more to display in a PAL signal that our TV doesn't know what to do with, and my TV does not let me adjust the video position of the composite/svideo/component/hdmi connections, only the vga input.
I was getting weary and sad, thinking I had made a huge mistake. I was really not happy. I decided I would at least try a burned disc. I quickly tossed an ISO of Jp PS2 Bomberman Battles on the PC and burned it off in Alcohol 120% and the disc loaded the first time. Japanese discs are NTSC, so there was no issue of video signal or frequency difference. Only the language barrier and as it turned out, the memory card being full. I couldn't yet understand why the PS2 was yelling at me in Japanese but I figured it was something about saving. So, upside. At the very least, I should be able to play the Japanese versions of the games I wanted to play, which would be several titles, but PAL would require work and maybe ISO patching to get the signal working right on our TV. Ugh.
I loaded up some AfterDawn forum posts I had read before, and a comment finally caught my eye. It turns out I was using the Magic Swap modes wrong. You are supposed to select NTSC and then [square] button for Special Load, not PAL. I was thinking it was asking what type of disc it was, though that menu option was really telling you what mode of video it would attempt to shit out at your PS2. Success! After trying both composite and component cables to check they worked fine, I got some results that were very satisfactory. I could now load my original PAL games! :D Hooooooray!
This first one is Bomberman Kart obviously. I had the TV on fill mode to stretch the image as I really hate 4:3 picture most times on the 16:9 widescreen size display. :( You cannot really notice here, but the Y position is lower than it should be if this were an NTSC game, by about 50-100 pixels maybe? Something like that. It is fine in most circumstances, as you can blindly go through the lower menu options by trial and error. In classic battle mode on this of the next game to be shown, it does chop off the bottom row of game zone where people are running around, so you cannot see what powerups you are getting in that last alleyway. lol There is no vertical centering option that I have found yet either. So, mild blah, but overwhelming cheers, heard over the now loud PS2, ever mindful to remind me that I opened it and took out some of its rude bits. :D
This is Bomberman Hardball, the PAL release of the Japanese original Bomberman Battles. The TV was set to normal display to show the difference in the two modes on the overall picture. You can quite clearly see that part of the game is cut off the screen. It only affects some menus and the aforementioned battle mode, though I have not investigated completely yet. This game has bombers in baseball, tennis, and golf. The normal low speed carts are horribly slow, but the highest end class of carts initially opened up is pretty cool. Baseball is fun, and tennis is also, though I can't run for shit in tennis with the low level stat character I was using. Got pounded by the AI.
So, as you see, I succeeded overall in my mission. Some noise, a failed button, some missing flesh, and some kinks to work out, but overall it's cool. There are solutions to be had, naturally. I can patch ISOs of the European games (to keep the English support) with a PAL to NTSC conversion app that also has a Vertical centering feature. It does not work on every game, but it might work on these two. I can also get a gameshark or other cheat device and try some misc found codes for the games to convert from PAL and Vertical center. One of these two might work, though I'm in no position to track down a $30 or more gameshark/other disc right away.
The possibilities for more disc support is now wide open though, and even helps the noise issue a bit. If I get an external harddrive that is supported or stick a supported harddrive in a USB enclosure or internally (not likely, I don't want to open the PS2 again anytime soon), and the HDLoader/other USB apps, the ISOs will load off it and cut down the disc loading required. The only loading would be the initial booting of any discs to boot the harddrive contents up. This poses its own unique challenges as each game works differently with the method, some do not at all, and I'd need to read more FAQs and forum posts, use a bit of trial and error, and of course, find the money to drop on this down the road. It's something to think about, but not quite yet. I really don't have a ton of games I want to find and play. Mostly just some karaoke titles from Japan and Europe, and the Bomberman games to see how well I like them before I can afford to buy them. The top games I will be looking for include SingStar Bollywood (which went off sale on Amazon so it back up in price), Karaoke Revolution anime editions, the Disney SingStar with actual disney movie songs, and a few others. If I like them I will buy them, but slowly as I find good deals, not at new price.
Hope you enjoyed my PS2 tangent. Feel free to ramble about how bad a person I am for opening my PS2 and downloading games to try before I buy them. :P If I could buy the games here I would have done so by now. Shipping from Europe and Japan is not always cheap and deals come and go. :( I try to be a good legit consumer but the deck is stacked against me, and likely you as well, as some content is just not available here without trickery. Maybe I'll find a cheap PAL display sometime or get a better PC just for using as a capture card that will allow me to shift the screen around to fit everything on the monitor. Don't know how likely that is. The new PC can do it somewhat but the quality of the composite signal is horrid. I need a component capture card. Where is my component capture card?!?
Either way. I am a champ this day, sirs and ladies. I hope you all are doing well.