Time to mod the ol' PS2! (installing a mod chip)

Nope. I understand pretty much how the community built it's beliefs and why people recommend what they do. There's no reasons for facepalming ...

 

I have SCPH-39008 (PAL). Use for 10 years. Modchip not, use only FMCB. Very reliable, never broke down. Periodically, the dust is blown with compressed air. (from cans). Resistant reading discs -PAL and NTSC. (with FMCB).
Of the drawbacks I can mention only a noisy fan.

 

It's exactly this what I am talking about. If you do not tamper with the PS2, it will not fail.

 

Laser risk vs having to play Xbox is a lose lose question. Western game design, pffft. :dejection:

 

Thanks for the write-up l_oliveira! I assume that any of the models you have listed as "highly repairable" are also the ones with a more rugged laser than the V9?


I'm now liking the idea of getting a better PS2 and installing a modchip. I know, I know, putting ISOs on a HDD would be better for a number of reasons, and I would totally do that if I just wanted to play games. But as I've said, I want the experience of being able to pull and original game off my shelves, pop it into the drive and play it that way. I know, I'm weird

 

For that, I recommend you get a current SCPH-9000x that matches your region and have it modded. Surprisingly "matrix clone" modchips are actually easier to obtain and install on these models since SONY (yet again) rigged the board in a way the original Matrix requires you to add resistors or transistors into the bus strobe pins (W and A) to insulate as the PS2 chipset now detects that current is being drawn at these lines and will refuse to start booting... Clones have the fix for that built in... lol

 

sony 1 step forward 2 steps back sigh

 

Ah, but there's the other catch. The SCPH-9000x series are the Slim model right? I like the design of the "Phat" better

 

No model of "phat" has coils protection mechanism (they never fixed the software bug mind you, 9000x still has the same buggy firmware on it's mechacon but a circuit inside of the servo controller chip disables all of it's outputs if mechacon crashes. They added this on SCPH-7500x)...

 

Damn.

Well, it's looking like my options for if I want to use the original disks on a Phat is either Swap Magic or a mod chip on one of the early models that are a bit tougher. For starters, I'll keep my eye on eBay and see how common a V4 console is

 

BTW: I think someone mentioned the bad quality of the Swap Magic discs (the discs themselves). You may get discs that take a little while to read, or that can be read every now and then (even if the laser is working fine with other CDs/DVDs. This is due to the way the discs are manufactured.

I think this in turn may wear out the laser (or part of its mechanism) faster. This is a personal thought, and may very well be wrong.

An alternative for using Swap Magic (without using its discs), is to install FreeMCB in a memory card, then copy the Swap Magic ELF to the memory card. Then configure FreeMCB (you can assign a button that will boot the Swap Magic ELF, or IIRC you can also have the Swap Magic ELF boot automatically every time, but I'm not sure about this).
Put an original CD/DVD game (with higher TOC than the game you want to play) and boot Swap Magic. At the Swap Magic main screen, do the swap trick for the game you want to play, and then choose the option to boot it
So, basically you're doing the same steps as with Swap Magic, but using CDs/DVDs that are properly manufactured and will be read without any major difficulties.

 

Ahem... *Cough*swap ... *Cough* cough Cogswap...


From Hermes. Great guy ... lol

Cogswap works great on old consoles. But honestly ESR is better for most cases. And ESR works great for homebrewn.

 

You're probably right about the disks wearing the laser out. And this would save me from having the buy the Swap Magic disks too. I'd still need to drive opening tool though wouldn't I?

From what I can tell, CogSwap is a disk swapping exploit like Swap Magic ELF, how does it compare to what pool7 described?

 

It is. And on very old PS2s, you can even use uLE to disc swap without need to use COGSWAP, even. Just turn "DISC CONTROL" function on at the settings.

 

I'm guessing my V9 is too new for that feature?

 

Good catch l_oliveira, I totally forgot about CogSwap!!!

AFAIK it works just as well as Swap Magic... but it's free

 

yah with ulaunch you can open the disk drive the normal way with the eject button
because the drive opening tool strips and dislodges the drive worm gear making opening the ps2 nessery

 

But wouldn't a V9 PS2 be too new for that function?

 

i believe disk control was designed for the v9+ ps2 when he says very old i belive he means fats

 

Opening the tray will cause the DVD drive to reset and that causes the drive to re-certify the disc. So no, you can't disk swap using the eject button. No matter what.

Edit:
And by very old PS2s I mean D-Chassis (V4) or earlier. For newer stuff you are forced to use cogswap or swapmagic. Swap magic is based on Cogswap, mind you.