Tool help, please...

i'll just slowly digest my way into the damaged controller port and DVD drive after that card for now. it wasn't my intention from the start to buy it knowing it will break (i got forewarned that this will likely happen) and then toss it in the corner

my only broblem is that since it's a total mess inside, im more worried about causing more damage than repairing the rig. Thus the continuous wall of questions. Please bear with me a week until i've gotten a hang of this

 

About the IDE cable, it's hard to say if it's damaged, try it in your computer.
You can use a new cable if needed, it doesn't matter.
Total mess inside?
Care to explain?

 

...Looks like a perfectly 'normal' cutout/pinout requirement on the IDE cable to me.

 

total mess inside as in:

this thing has 2 motherboard.
there's hardly any space anywhere.
there's about a million types of cables an connectors i've never seen before.
the markings on what goes where don't match at all (i assume someone has dissassembled the unit before.)
the mainboard can be put into like 30 pieces which is something i really hope i don't need to do.
it's full of dust and dirt (and a dead butterly)

tl;tr version:

this thing is far more of a complex than anything i've ever dealt before.
im somewhat scared to take it apart actually
not to mention that this is the first dev item i've ever had and it's like a baby to me now <3 I dreamed a long, LONG time to have one.

as for the cables: thanks for clarifying that
i got a bunch of unused IDE cables i got with my old ASUS board, so i'll replace the old ones with them.

what comes to the 815VE card then, i got all the pins straightened from the cpu and im currently dissecting an old PC motherboard to get replacement coils to replace the damaged ones.
im pretty confident on getting the card revived now

 

So it's not a total mess, it's completely normal!

The disassembly guide made by Parris will be usefull to you, if you haven't it already, grab it in one of the sticky threads.
I also have the 815VE manual here

 

thanks for the 815VE manual, i'l ltake a read on it

and the guide from the sticky thread is what im following already.
i wouldn't dare to open this without it
everyone who worked that made a great job really.

right now my main problem is that i don't have any suitable device at hand where i could scavenge that spring that was lost from one of the holes in the socket. i even have a mobo with socket 370 but it's one of those that has the locking lever and therefore the thing is totally different.

i suppose i might need to contact the manufacturer for for a repair request at this rate.

what a bad luck really

on the good side tho, atleast im getting familiar with the thing now.
it's part of the fun with hardware to take it to pieces and see how it's built.

for now i'll just move on to repair the DVD drive and the controller port until i find a suitable donator to repair the card.

 

Sounds bad, packed it safety as possible. But of corse when someone throw an 26KG Paket ....
I wish you more luck when you fix it.

 

yeah, your packaging was great

unfortunately DHL was very rough on it and the blue stand was broken in half and the cpu got what it go.

on the bright side, it could have been a lot worse.

i guess shit happens, but damage is just a thing that's made to be repaired afterall. And im going to fix this baby no matter how long it takes and what it costs. ...And no matter how many annoying posts i have to make here to request help :dance:

i'll be likely bosting a ton of questions tomorrow again when i get back to it.
thanks to everyone for all the help so far.

 

well, atleast i have one set of good news for this evening still

I decided to take the controller port out so that i can take it to be fixed with precision equipment tomorrow but after opening the facade and taking it out, to my amazement i found this inside.

sorry for the fuzzy picture, but yes, the part is completely intact.
not sure what's going on as i was told that the unit im buying was the same that's on the first post of this thread.
I guess someone up there still likes me or something.

 

after exchanging PM's with Parris for a while and he talked me over to powering up the unit, the judgement is as follows:

PCI card -> OK
controller ports -> OK
interior -> OK
exterior (panels and decals) -> moderately damaged
CDVDDrive -> Broken

the rig is completely fine aside the fact that it looks like it's been dropped out of airplane.
however the drive laser elevation arm is currently totaled, which is why the drive gets jammed when opened an closed and it most likely doesn't even operate at all even if forcibly closed since the unit can't lift the laser at all.

im going through part dealers to see if any of the retail drive parts is usable on the TOOL, but so far it seems that im screwed

right now im waiting for something parris sent me so that i can get to test the rest of the unit properly.

 

Buy an SCPH-10000 and take the drive out of it. Same parts, same optical laser, same tray, same everything.

 

ah, so it is the same thing afterall.
I heard that the unit bases on the first model of ps2 but never had a SCPH-10000 and it's pretty hard to find pics of specific parts of specific models so couldn't get anything solid out of google

thanks, i'll try to find one.

edits: ordered a V1 spare from richspsxparts now and with that it's about done now, assuming that i did order a correct one

 

The hole in the IDE type cable is used to determine whether the HDD that is connected as Master Or Slave useing the Cable Select method. aka CS so its not really broken at all. its common in all PC's Workstations and Servers that used the Ultra ATA 133 IDE Protocol.

The Cable Select standard pretty much ended the Master or Slave jumper configurations... so you would only have to set Master or Slave if your Motherboards IDE contorller did NOT support Cable Select.

Xeveniah Darkwind

 

i suppose im so young then that i've never actually bumbed into one, or atleast remember so. In any case, i slapped in some new cables and it seems to work fine now.

what became bigger issue afterall was the controller port that looked and felt like being completely fine and actually did work (for 20 seconds) was broken afterall.

so im once again facing the issue of risking to solder it or spending the next 20 years trying to find a spare part for it.

im taking the thing to get repaired tomorrow and hopefully it'll come out fine.
The lack of space totally isn't making it any easier tho, I might just end up desoldering the ports from the PCB to gain proper access to the connector pads.

wish me luck

 

just letting you guys know incase anyone was/is interested

after several hours, rather expensive soldering iron, a microscope, lots of smokes and even more coffee, the controller port connector is alive and kicking again

this was hands down THE most annoying thing to solder. Ever.
please do not break your tools, you don't want to solder that thing.

and with that, im finally getting the to the top of things here and the tool finally does it's things aside the minor fact that i still gotta use screwdriver to open the dvd tray

 

There will be a lot of people wanting to access your soldering skills. Mine simply ain't good enough to solder those tiny points!

One of the most common issues with faulty PS2 Tools (if not the HDD being blank) is a faulty controller port.

Well done!

 

oh god please NO!

never again. Seriously, i like doing small solder repairs to stuff and whatnot but I serously don't want to do that again. Especially if it's not my own TOOL and i would be responsible when it doesn't work afterwards :\

i had shaky hands throughout the whole thing and i was scared to death for completely ruining the part knowing that i'll never get another if i destroy it.

 

Mugi: good job :thumbsup:.

+1.

Speaking of TOOL controller ports: did anybody try to compare them to their retail counterparts yet? I read in another topic that a retail port will not work in a TOOL, but I'm wondering why. The circuits shouldn't be too different, so I'm guessing its just the connector that doesn't match. Maybe just a different pin ordering?

 

thanks for that, but really, it was just patience and access to actually expensive tools to use while doing it, not much so my soldering

still, comments are heartwarming as usual :redface:

what comes to the port differences then,
as the third post of this thread shows, there's some stuff on the pcb that's plain missing from the standard one, such as the red wire and the resistors added between some points.

i thought about comparing those but don't have a retail part at hand now unless i take another of my units apart. Might do that a bit later tho.

my knowledge about the whole matter is very inferior in any case, so i don't think i'll get much out of it, but if someone with a bit more knowledge manages to figure it out, im more than willing to hear it out

my TOOL is still laying down in pieces on my kitchen while waiting for spare parts to finish it, so if needed i could try and take a scan of the controller port PCB.

 

Sorry for the late reply, I'm pretty busy...

That doesn't need to mean anything. Might be just a different (earlier) revision of the PCB.
How long is the cable connecting the TOOL's controller port to the mainboard, in comparison to a retail unit? The PCB might also have some EMI filters (like the ones found in the external controller box for PS1 dev cards) which are not needed for retail machines.

Thanks for offering, a scan would definitely help :thumbsup:. However, if I read oli_lar's photo correctly, the controller port PCB uses at least two layers, so we wouldn't be able to reconstruct a schematic from it. We would need scans of both sides, and hope it has no other internal layers.

I'd recommend doing a full wiring test (via multimeter with continuity tester) on this board, to reconstruct a schematic. We just need the pin assignment of the ribbon connector (to compare it to the retail controller port), but I don't think that there's an easier way to get it than to reverse the whole board.