MM3 mod for PS1 has been a hassle.

I'm gonna try a new laser first. If that doesn't work, then I'll go with the CD's.

 

roger that

 

slayer , sometimes the Chinese Lasers come DOA you may want to buy 2. About half of the Neo Geo CDZ Lasers i've bought came that way , i would go with one from a PSone as Bad_Ad84 suggested. Also if the Laser you get does work with your current backups it means the Laser you have now is on it's way out.

Another tip is back 12+ years ago i used to use not so great media on my Dreamcast and then i learned how to burn good burns. I put Powerstone 2 in and was floored , the part where you select your character and then it starts to load the stage was hugely reduced. This means the DC's Laser wasn't struggling to read the disc. If a Laser is having a hard time reading a disc i believe it will shorten the life of it. So i highly recommend in good burns.

hopefully this helps you and others out there

s8n

 

I bought a PSone console for the laser.

 

awesome , hopefully it helps the situation and you can boot the backups you have. If it works i would go that extra step and get the things we've mentioned to create good burns.

 

One thing to watch out for is that the old PU-7 and PU-8 based consoles require significantly better pickup performance than the newer ones - so even if you have a pickup that works perfectly in a PSone, it might not have enough output to work correctly in a SCPH-100x machine.

 

Could you explain what pickup is please?

 

Optical pickup assembly - the bit that's often called the "laser", although that's really only one part of it.

 

As others have pointed out, probably your laser and/or burned media and not the chip itself.

If the chip wasn't working, you wouldn't be getting the PS1 logo at all with backup games.

 

This thread may interest you as well (crossflashing to Lite-On firmware)
http://team-xecuter.com/forums/threads/93081-Asus-DRW-24B1ST-crossflash

You may get more consistent results using a Lite-On firmware, rather than the stock Asus.

 

excellent work dib , burning for 360 requires a good drive and settings to get discs to run on it so this will improve slayers burner.

thumbs up

 

The 360 burning drive wasnt all that good. It just had firmware that could be hacked and didnt burn the DL verbs too badly.

I wouldnt call it a good drive. Lite-on are generally good readers, but average at best writers.

 

I cross-flashed a burner years ago, it gave out shortly after (started having more issues to the point it wouldn't work anymore). Should be fine, but your milage may vary.

 

wonder if it was a isolated incident or it is common ? or the drive was on it's way out anyway ?.

 

Couldn't tell you, was just stating my experience. Either is plausible.

 

I had many PS1 in the past, even a couple with PU-7 Mainboard. Disc made by Moser Baer India (MBI) never run in any of my system. But CMC Magnetics works fine. Just check the OEM package for "Made in India" = MBI or "Made in China" = CMC. Taiyō Yūden disc are more superior no doubt but expensive.

Also model SCPH-1001 and SCPH-1002 have the worst laser, in case of read error always swap them with PSOne Laser. That should also fix known FMV issues with these units.

 

The PSone arrived today. I transplanted the disc drive mechanism... AND IT WORKS! Booting backups is still a little slow, but IT WORKS!

 

Nevermind, it's not reading backups anymore. I'm gonna try pot adjustments. Anyone know where to get a cheap multimeter than can measure Millivolts? (mV)

 

slayer try the boot method i mentioned. Turn the PS1 on and let it go to the CD Player and Memory Card menu , then pop in a backup and close the lid. I get the best success with my PS1's with this method i also use a MM3. Btw POT tweaking is bad and will shorten the life of the Laser.

CD Player Screen and Memory Card menu below , a couple of different ones

 

Any DMM should be able to do that, even a cheap 3.5 digit one - just set it to the 2V range and the MSD of the display is mV. Having said that, adjusting those pots for fixed voltages isn't really that useful - it will normally get you somewhere near the correct operating point and might be useful for a completely misaligned unit, but to correctly adjust the servos you really need an alignment disc and at least a scope (scope and jitter meter is better, but you can do without the jitter meter if you have a little experience of how the eye pattern should look).

One useful test is to put the original drive assembly out of the SCPH-1001 into the PSone and see if it works. The PSone has a much better servo system than the older PU-7 and PU-8 boards and if it won't work in a PSone then it's definitely bad.

I would also strongly recommend you don't touch the pot on the flexible PCB (the one on the side of the pickup assembly) - unless you have the correct jig and an optical power meter it's very easy to adjust the laser launch power to a level where it's damaging the laser diode and will cause premature failure. Adjusting the other pots of the PCB is safe, but it's wise to make a note of the initial positions in case something gets badly off.