My current PS2 is starting to behave pretty wierdly, and I was wondering if anyone could advise on a fix. It'll boot past the Sony Plastation logo fine, but on some games, it'll start making a "click click click click" noise. The screen stays completely black - no DRE error, nothing, it'll just sit there clicking away for as long as I leave it. Seems to happen mostly on DVD games. It's not modchipped or anything, aside from the HDD it's a completely stock unit running retail games. Any ideas? I want to play some Guitar Hero, goddamnit.
something on laser moving mechanism. had the same problem. couldn't fix even with the help of people here. eventually it'll die completely. i suggest you to play GH from the HD...
I havent touched a ps2 in awhile but that sounds like its trying to read the disk but possibly the laser is dead and its failing to read the disk. or something is wrong with the drive itself.
Alchy, my brother's PS2 (actually two of them) suffered this problem. Basically what probably happened is there is a screw like metal piece in the PS2. The laser lens piece has a plastic piece that fits in the groove on the screw piece. A motor turns to move the laser up and down to read any area of the Disc. The problem is it can get nasty build up of dust and dirt and become unable to move and you'll hear a clicking sound. I suggest you take apart your PS2. You can use a 000 sized Philips to remove the 2 metal bars that the laser lens piece rides on. Clean them and also with the laser head now out of the way a bit you can turn and try to clean off the screw piece. After giving it a good cleaning it should work again. Atleast it worked for me with the 2 PS2s I worked on. Note that I'm not really sure if originally there was any kind of lubricant/grease on either the rails or the screw. Maybe someone here knows. But your PS2 sounds to have the exact problem I've seen in other PS2s. Cleaning should fix it.
Is it the slim PSTwo or the big one? If it's the big one, then yes, try cleaning up the sensor that senses when the laser hits the outer most part of the laser module. This might help. However, my little brother's slim PSTwo had a similar problem and it was due to a faulty laser.
We call this the R noise, because it mainly affected the R series. Check your serial number - does it end in R? It's a big machine, right? My boss fixed them, can't remember what he did - something about a three-quarter turn, I think. It is more common for PS2s to fail on CD first. Err, isn't at least one of the Guitar Hero games on CD?? If you're going to strip it, I would advise against adjusting any pots in there!
there's also a white wheel that you can adjust I had seen awhile ago on XPlay (back when Tech TV still existed) there may still be a video for it.
This is a pretty common (and simple!) fault to fix. What you're hearing is the laser arm slipping on the worm motor inside. As Motzilla said - open up the console and get down to the laser assembly. Depending on your model, you'll need to either unscrew or unclip the metal rail that the laser sits on. Now, if you look at the laser you'll see a metal or white plastic "laser arm" on the right hand side. Thats what having problems. Turn over the laser and have a look at the underside of the arm. It'll probably be covered in grey gunk so give that a wee wipe off. If you look carefully at the two wee teeth on it - you'll probably see that they are worn down to a kind of half-moon shape. The correct fix would be to replace the arm - but you should be able to get away with a quick bodge. Just flip the laser back over and carefully bend the laser arm downwards - it should now sit at a slightly acute angle to the laser, and this should give the teeth enough bite to stay on the worm motor without slipping. Now before you put it all back together, take an old toothbrush and clean down the worm motor (the spirally thing on the right). Now splodge a wee bit of synthetic lube on there. I'd avoid WD40 - its a bit wet for this purpose - I use Super Lube, but vaseline should do just fine. Now all you need to do is put it all back together and cross your fingers it works! Couple of things to note - when you're inside the drive try to avoid moving any of the white cogs etc, you shouldn't need to mess around with them at all. Also, the "clicking" problem can also be caused by a fault on the board. If one of the drives ICs goes, then it can wear down the arm just like this. If you're not getting the click anymore, but it still won't read disks - then your probably screwed :s Hope this helps, I've repaired hundreds of PS2s with this problem (although I replaced the arm) so I'm pretty confident this should sort you out. Good luck!
Finally got around to this today, and... the laser's fucked on it, basically. Thanks for all the help anyway, I feel like I know my way around a PS2 much better now.
Well, it'd stopped playing games altogether a couple of days ago (it had been playing Odin Sphere fine last week, oddly enough), so when I open the case and watch what the drive does, it's doing these little turns, then stopping, then another turn, stopping etc. Finally it'll spin up, but no game loads. According to everything I've read that either means the ribbon cable to the laser unit is incorrectly connected (it's connected fine), or the laser unit is dead. Either way I'm looking at units which are import-capable as a replacement, this one has done me well enough over the last couple of years given the price I got it at. So if anyone's got an import-capable PS2 for sale, PM me the details...
try this: http://www.cyber-mag.com/station/laserPS2.htm i brought a console which read nothing to reading discs again with that!
I've tried all of that (except modifying the pots as I don't have my multimeter to hand), it still does exactly the same thing. Besides that I've read elsewhere that the exact problem I described does mean "knackered laser" so I'm reasonably convinced that's what it is. Thanks for posting the link, though.
Well the only way to really be import capable would be a modchipped system or an actual imported system. Take your pick. I advise against using any Swap Tricks like Swap Magic to play copies as the laser probably stays calibrated to read the surface of the original DVD (SwapMagic usually) and does not recalibrate for the new disc. Maybe you can get a nice modded PAL unit or a modded US or JP unit. Not sure which imports you are wanting to play exactly.
