New PS2 Tool owner, have some questions...

Spent about an hour last night trying to find a spare usb card lurking around here... I have a feeling it should work...

On the other end of things, if you have a PCI-815VE in your TOOL, I'm betting you can use the onboard usb header with legacy keyboard support enabled in bios...

 

you can add usb's to the PCI815VE. It's documented on the card's info sheet.

 

that's what i was referring to...
sadly no luck on the older card

 

Just a new Question

Can i put an external HDD to the tool?

And what can i do then with the external HDD?

 

I would caution you to reread through all the old threads...
You need an H or HJ model, then either the Japanese PCMICA HDD kit, or the official TOOL one. If the games/apps you are using on the PS2 half of the TOOL WORK (first off), IF they support the use of the HDD of installation or caching, they MAY work on the HDD. There's no guarantee that I know of, someone else might be able to answer that more directly, but you're kinda on your own in terms of all PS2 compatibility.

On a side note- anyone interested in compiling a game compatibility list for the TOOL? The system kinda sucks if all you want to do is play games with it, but it might at least be somewhat interesting....

 

Hi,

today my tool arrived.. but i have a problem..

I put a PC TFT Monitor on it via D-SUB 15 PIN Cable.. The monitor receives a signal.. but the monitor Displays: OUT OF RANGE

??

Can someone help here?

Regards
Bjoern

 

Did you connect your monitor to the hidden VGA port on the CPU card? To quote myself (post #62 in this thread):

 

Hi,

thanks for your help... so i uploaded an image here:



On the vga Port makred with "1" i become the Message on my MOnitor "Out of Range"

On the Port Marked with 2 i become no signal on my Monitor?
The Monitor says: "No Signal detected"

Or is there any other VGA Port?

I Can see only these two?!

Thanks for your help

Regards
Bjoern

 

hmm the Ethernet Port above the VGA Port "2" is not blinking too when i power on the Tool... I Put in a PS2 Keyboard under VGA Port too... the Keyboard has also no signal "NUM Lock is not on"

 

I opened the tool know and i see this:



So i think it is not normal the the CPU is not in the CPU socket?!?!?

3 pins are crooked bit i think i can put them back.. but i dont know how to attach the CPU to the board.. there is no clip to hold the cpu?!?

Regards
Bjoern

 

there is no clip ;( the cpu is just pressed in the socket ..

i think the tool wasnt transportet very carefully ;( did the parcel show any damages ? was it dropped ?

it sure was coz otherwise the cpu wouldne pop out ;(

 

The package looked very fine... but i think they rotated it many times... so i already have no Signal no keyboard signal or Ethernet blinking.. i hope this PCI card is not damaged!

 

this is exactly what happened to me and my tool.

just for a tip: Look at the socket very carefully to see if the CPU pins ripped out some of the small spring-like things that hold the cpu in place. Mine was missing one and one was damaged. Placing the cpu in the socket in that state will cause you some more damage.

also make sure that the pins that are bent are straight enough to place properly or they will just snap off when you place it back causing you to need a new CPU.

fixing that is really a pain in the ass but if all the pins on the cpu are still there and the socket isn't damaged, you can get it running in a hour or two good luck.

 

Hi Mugi,

thanks for your help.. but that helped not.. so what we`va done is that we build in a new CPU Board.. now the TOOL works fine

I have a new Question...

is it possible to get the data stored on my Memory Card on my TOOL?

Such things as: Delete Save States / Format Memory Card etc... how can i do this on the TOOL?

Regards
Bjoern

 

OK, in the middle of my whole "Let's convert the TOOL to flash memory" project... ran into.. less of a snag, and more of an oddity...

I've noticed everyone swears by the presence of the secondary drive on the PS2 board... But For a while during load testing and rewiring, I ran into no issues with only a HDD on the SBC...

On the other hand, I finished the heatshrink tubing last night, closed up the system, and was playing a few games to make sure everything checked out... Connected PCMCIA card and external HDD, but couldn't boot Linux- either beta or final, the HD partitioner, or a couple other random originals!
Game would boot up to what SHOULD have been the boot screen, and would echo the usb data across the debugger, but never get to the installer pane.

On a whim, attached the second drive, and games, Linux, etc all popped right up.

What gives... if the purpose of the second drive was for devs to work on ps2 hdd games before the final kit was released, I suppose this'd make sense, but the games in question (none actually have hdd support, and well- linux, as unclejun has mentioned, without custom kernel, won't even see the INTERNAL hdd) ... my guess is that some sony library that controls hdd also checks the presence of the internal drive if said system is a tool, just in case? I really have no huge issue in putting a drive on this bus, but the inconsistency was a little misleading in initial testing

Are there by chance any reset flags/ps2 dips that might affect this- unless I grossly overlooked it, there seems to be no option...

 

Anyway you can yell at me for it, but here's how the tool is looking as of today:

angled shot of the inside

 

great !

 

I did a full teardown and deep cleaning to prepare for major rewiring yesterday, so took some pictures while I was at it reassembling- finished the rewiring, but stopped the images short for the time being while I rethought the wiring, pondering making a proper harness instead:
more pics
(ignore the dust in the upper left of the full board pic- i missed it on the first pass with the toothbrush- got it the second time around)