First of all Greets to everyone in this forum as this is my first post. I recently squired an old PS2 with some games which was in need of some tender loving care, I have replaced the frayed and tattered cables on the controllers, replaced and calibrated the Laser assembly, replaced the seized fan and installed a Ethernet adapter and a 250gig HDD. It now works fine. The problem I am having is with the Action Replay card that came with it. Thew system and the AR MAX software do not recognize the card. I have disassembled the card and have concluded so far that the SST 29LE010 i pooched as it will not identify in my programmer and the contents of the eeprom is all 000's. I have a good working SST29LE010 but require assistance with a eeprom dump from a working card and if someone could tell me if this is just a 1meg memory card or a hardware dongle required by the AR MAX software. any assistance would be much appreciated. Thank You Warren Attached are pics of the AR MAX CARD. Pics: My Homemade Programmer.
That thing is a dongle. Even if it's empty the DATEL software will detect it, init it properly (with the default cheats from the disc) and then it will work just fine. I suggest you inspect that ceramic resonator. Make sure it's oscillating.
Thank You for reply, I will check the 20.0 MHz Ceramic Oscillator, I thought that because the ASIC could not read the flash it was refusing to work. My eeprom programmer would no even detect it, and forced read the contents of the buffer was all 000000's. I had a good 29LE010 that detected properly that I could read and write to so I replaced the original. Thanks for responding
That kind of PLCC socket can be very finicky. The flash could be good but is not making proper contact. FYI, that flash is a 3.3v part and connecting it to 5V will ruin it.
My programmer is modified for 3.3 volt device, i have rescued many video cards with 3.3 volt bios that peoples tried to cross flash and bricked the card. I also have hot air station, board pre-heater and newly acquired infrared BGA rework station. When you are an old retired Electronics repair Technician and love tinkering you tend to get nice toys. I have successfully re-balled many Xbox and laptops already,
If you're 100% sure the flash is bad (can't accept any more writes) that could indeed cause the dongle to not work properly. If you solder a new flash and the fault is just that, the disc will be able to init the dongle properly.
Ceramic resonator scoped out good, New Flash seems to have fixed the problem. Ar Max disc now recognizes the dongle and load the cheat codes, it is interesting to note that Gameshark V2 also works with the AR Max dongle who would have figured. Added bonus On another note the PS2 Ethernet adapter seems to have problems Hard drive works fine on it but the AR Max locks up the system when the network cable is plugged in. I do not have the original Ethernet install disk but found a v1.1 ISO that I used WinHIIP_V1.7.6 to load it on the HDD. I ran the install and it finds the Ethernet adapter but it cant send the registration data, and I can find the PS2 in the Dynamic IP list on my router. Any insight as to possible known problems with these Ethernet adapters? I have ordered another one off Ebay and picked up another working PS2 and a second copy of GT3 at the pawn shop and was hoping to put the Ethernet adapter I ordered in the second PS2 and link them with a cross over cable and donate the entire bundle to a lady I know that looks after some kids so thy can race against each other an stay out of trouble. Any insight and thank for the help.
