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PS2 restoration, PlayStation 2 gaming console use and repair.

Rocco

Wandering Trainwreck
V.I.P Member
I have adopted a new hobby, playing my old PlayStation 2 game system and buying and fixing/restoring old broken consoles.
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The PS2 console was introduced 20 years ago and was the game system for a generation of players. Now it has become a retro system and popularity is/was increasing, particularly as a result of the pandemic. When the system was new I was too cautious to take the console apart to see all the internals and moving parts. Now that broken consoles can be found for $10-$30, I have been stripping them down doing deep cleaning and replacing lasers and internal power supplies.
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The two most common failures are the power supply circuit board and the laser it self. Systems that won’t power on are almost always as simple as the power supply. A new complete power circuit board costs around $12-15. The laser indicates failure when it stops reading the blue disc games or PS1 games. This is another easy fix, a new laser is around $15. Sometimes the new laser has a solder bead that must be removed (solder for static shipping protection) and this is as easy as touching a solder iron tip to the bead to remove it.
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Last night/this morning I found another issue that prevents the reading of blue discs, there is a gear that controls some part the the laser. I rotated the gear clockwise until it clicked and the laser drive body popped up. Then I rotated it clockwise until it reached its original alignment position. This fixed the reading issue after a new laser was installed. Perhaps this rotation would have fixed it without a new laser? I have four additional consoles coming in the mail this week which I will test the gear rotation theory.
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The console in the photos was a totally broken spare parts donor that I got up and running last night and perfected adjusting just a short while ago.
 
The lasers brake faster when you use them for media discs, if you try to play a music cd it will keep reading music as its playing, it doesn't cache what its read like it does for game discs. However since the lasers are very cheap it's not an issue for me, i can just buy a new one. Cheap burnable discs and scratched discs also wear the lasers down very quickly.

If you can find broken capacitors or burned resistors in the power supply you could just replace those, should be much cheaper than buying entirely new ones. You can get a cheap tester for capacitors, resistors and transistors.
 
Last edited:
FF8 was good. That finally made it's way to Android now. I should probably give it a go seeing as my new phone could run it properly.

Ed
 
I have adopted a new hobby, playing my old PlayStation 2 game system and buying and fixing/restoring old broken consoles.
View attachment 71683
View attachment 71687
The PS2 console was introduced 20 years ago and was the game system for a generation of players. Now it has become a retro system and popularity is/was increasing, particularly as a result of the pandemic. When the system was new I was too cautious to take the console apart to see all the internals and moving parts. Now that broken consoles can be found for $10-$30, I have been stripping them down doing deep cleaning and replacing lasers and internal power supplies.
View attachment 71684
View attachment 71685
The two most common failures are the power supply circuit board and the laser it self. Systems that won’t power on are almost always as simple as the power supply. A new complete power circuit board costs around $12-15. The laser indicates failure when it stops reading the blue disc games or PS1 games. This is another easy fix, a new laser is around $15. Sometimes the new laser has a solder bead that must be removed (solder for static shipping protection) and this is as easy as touching a solder iron tip to the bead to remove it.
View attachment 71686
Last night/this morning I found another issue that prevents the reading of blue discs, there is a gear that controls some part the the laser. I rotated the gear clockwise until it clicked and the laser drive body popped up. Then I rotated it clockwise until it reached its original alignment position. This fixed the reading issue after a new laser was installed. Perhaps this rotation would have fixed it without a new laser? I have four additional consoles coming in the mail this week which I will test the gear rotation theory.
View attachment 71688

The console in the photos was a totally broken spare parts donor that I got up and running last night and perfected adjusting just a short while ago.

Very cool, this is the kind of thing that I could get into. When I was still working, I would repair PC boards with parts from other boards.

I hope that you are still painting.
 

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