Okay. It's me again. So,a few months earlier my GH-018 v7 finally died,and I was left with most of its components (PSU,DVD,case,fan etc.)and the DVD drive had a open faced HD7 which I later in its life swapped its plastic with a closed HD7 one. It worked with a 100% boot rate (no jokes). A few hours earlier this day,I've bought another fat,a 400C v8,and I've restored its case to the out-of-the-box state. I've tested a ESR patched copy of a game (Socom:Navy Seals) and it seems the disc has to click a few times to spin up the disc and then it loads the game,but a bit slower than the HD7 I have did. Any ideas if it's better to leave the 400C in there?Or should I install the HD7?
Just clean the 400c and it should work fine without any problems. I don't like the HD7 lasers, as they seem to be worse than the 400c. Replacing them also costs more, so I always buy the 400c lasers and use lenschanger to make them work on an incompatible board. If cleaning doesn't do it, then just replace the laser. A new laser from ebay costs 10$, so that's not alot.
Funnily,when I bought the PS2,it was looking like it was from a dumpster,however the innards were SPARK clean. Same for the laser. Maybe it has seen quite a bit of use?
If it was heavily used, then the laser must be worn out. It's a real pain to do the cog adjustment or pot adjustment, so I usually just replace the laser. If you want to put the HD7 in place of the 400c, you will need to have a softmodded PS2 and use the lenschanger app.
I have a spare 400c IIRC,but what I want to know is which is faster at loading games. Also,what's the difference between the 39003 and the 39004? Let me know tomorrow,not on my PC atm but wanted to ask this question.
Regardless of which laser you install, your drive will always be a 24x CD-ROM and 4x DVD drive. Both of my SCPH-10000 were super clean (and boxed too), but had nearly-dead KHS-400A lasers. Probably means that they were either heavily used or have deteriorated while in storage. Use Verbatim DVD-R discs that were manufactured by either Taiyo Yuden or Mitsubishi, in order to prolong the lifespan of your laser. The clicking sound is the sound of the laser trying (and failing) to get a good focus on the media. Older consoles are generally picky when it comes to reading burned discs. Don't play with the cog/adjust the pots. If you adjust the cog, then new lasers will be affected too. If the laser is dying, just replace it. Even if you adjusted the pots to make the laser stronger, it'll die even sooner. The last 2 digits in a console's model number is the region. 04 is Europe while 03 is UK.
Well,media I have used on the HD7 and which worked fine was mainly Traxdata white DVDs and green X-Data DVDs,rarely Verbatim DVDs and some Nivino discs. From all of these,I've found the green X-Data DVDs so thich that you could think they were dual layer (while they werent). However,it seems that this 400c has some problems in reading them and I wonder if other 400c lasers do too. (as I said,I have a spare 400c from a chipped v8 which was used only with DVD-R discs)
Okay,something's kinda weird with my 39004 and I can't understand what did exactly happen: So,I had to replace my 400C with another laser. Since I don't have lenschanger's ELF and my pendrive is broken,I had the only option of installing the old open faced HD7 in it. Okay,got it in,thought I test it. Now here's the weird thing:the laser works,but in the VERY VERY SAME style as the 400C. I mean,if the 400c was clicking a few times until it could focus on the disc,so does the HD7 now. Other than that,it works fine,and even though the laser comes from a defunct 39003,the model still reads 39004. I've read on somebody's thread that when he swapped the drives between a 30003R and 30004R,both consoles showed 30003R. Well,in my case,it retained 39004. And one final thing: is there anything to be afraid of after I installed the HD7? I noticed it reads my games a lot better than the old 400C my PS2 came with. Thanks for any PS2 tech that reads this post and hope I can get a answer.
l_Oliveira will probably agree with me, if I wrote here that it's because the console isn't set to use the R-type laser. Also, is your "v8" really a v8? The "v8" consoles were either SCPH-39000 (Japan) or SCPH-39006 (HK/SG). They have the GH-022 board. There's no explanation for that so far. In my opinion, it's impossible because the model number comes from the MECHACON's NVRAM storage. Therefore, it wouldn't have just changed unless they swapped something else other than just the laser... So it reads a lot better, with struggles at the start? :/ That's not really an improvement. Maybe it's still being more reliable because it's in a better condition than your KHS-400C was. At least, there was a reason why there's the R-type laser patch flag, otherwise the SONY engineers wouldn't have put such an option into the SONY service tools. EDIT: Or maybe its previous owner swapped the laser with a KHS-400C, without lenschanger too. That would explain the improvement.
Yes. I know it's a v8 since those used 400C lasers. And just a FYI,most PAL 39004 consoles I've seen here are all GH-022,and 39003s are GH-018. The struggles at the start aren't something new to me,it's just the laser trying to focus on the disc,because some of my older games are a bit scratched. Also,I guess a KHS-400B wouldn't work on the v8,right?
FYI, the Mechacon will try to read the disc even with wrong settings, after a couple of tries (it will try both CD and DVD lasers) it will swap for the next kind of laser then try again. So if you fit the wrong laser and let the lenses kick a lot you will scratch your disc, ruin your laser (it uses ROM defaults on the second try and depending on the physical adjust of the pot on the pickup you can easily fry the lasers) or even have the Mechacon crash and fry the tracking coil. So don't insist. Use something like lenschanger.
The "v7" could have a GH-022, from my memory. See how inaccurate these unofficial designations are? And my SCPH-39006 has a Sanyo SF-HD7 and was made by FOXCONN, China (probably the first revision to be). My SCPH-39001 (v7), before I returned it, had a KHS-400C. Refer to this: http://www.ps2parts.com/identify.htm Although I would recommend that you stop using these unofficial version numbers since they are inaccurate. Just to add on to what l_Oliveira wrote: playing scratched games could total your laser too. Stop insisting that it's alright. Have you ever totalled a laser before? I have totalled the one in my SCPH-39001, and I did it in a day by getting it to read my scratched-up burned discs (which could be read by my SCPH-77006 with no issues). Some of them were not scratched up, but the discs were still cheap. Yea, the SCPH-39001 probably had a weak laser. But see, damaged/poor-quality discs can finish it off. I think that it could. But it's an older laser model that isn't as reliable. Just get a KHS-400C, or use lensechanger and stick with the Sanyo SF-HD7.
The SF-HD7 that is currently in my 39004 had seen LOTS and LOTS of scratched games (GTA San Andreas being the most scratched game)and poor media,and it still reads 19 of my 20 games. (Only Burnout 3 doesn't work but I don't really play that game anymore). I have to say that I find the open faced HD7 lasers more reliable than 400C when it comes to burned media. My old GH-018 v7 (are there any GH-018 v6 systems?) had the open faced SF-HD7 (which now is in my GH-022 PS2) and it ran cheap and scratched discs without a problem,while the 400C in this console would be picky about what kind of discs it ran. And for l_Oliveira: The lens was kicking a lot trying to read some older discs (mainly 007 AUF which was 75-80% scratched) way before I installed the HD7. SP193: I've ran through a 35004 (v4),30004R (v4R and recently a v5),a v9 and v10 (50003 and 50004),a v7 (my old 39003) and finally this 39004 (v7 or 8,anybody can guide me how to find if it's a v7 or v8?) and NEVER EVER broke a laser. And no,I;m not kidding at all about that. First two had 400B lasers (the 35004 was a PSone only system,due to DVD side being shot),the v5 had a HD7,first v10 had a 400c and the other one (including the v9)had a HD7. My 39003 also had a HD7,and the 39004 in this thread had a very old 400c (kept it just in case something happens) EDIT:Okay,I retract what I said that the board is a GH-022. It's a GH-019,but the copyright date strangely says 2002. Wasn't v7 made earlier than 2002?
