Back in the day, we used to cure broken PS1's by turning them upside down. I was always told that this was due to the cd mechanism using plastic rails for the lens, which would wear unevenly. The 'cure' worked as the sled would then slide on the unworn top rails, rather than unevenly worn bottom rails. Now, the wikipedia has some guff that it the 'upside down' trick was to do with ventilation? Which one is correct? Or are both of the explanations complete guff?
Early model systems and laser assemblies used material that had a problem with warping or wearing (perhaps from heat) that eventually resulted in disc reading problems. Turning the system upside down may have a tendency to correct this misalignment. The issue about heat and ventilation is related. Sony eventually moved the position of the laser assembly further away from the power supply in later models. But they also used better materials too.
Yeah i remember having to have my launch PS1 swap over for the dreaded FMV skipping on Tekken . Good thing back then is Sony would send a courier with a brand new console and you just game them your old one, so you were never without a console, think i had to do this 2 time in the first 18 months or so
That method is old and well known. also it useful If you have game that has some scratch on the disc and having problem loading or FMV or music background. Just turn Any Model PS1 or PSone upside down and it works. I have done it with PSone.
Is this why Sony has designed their systems to be horizontal, with or without a stand? My PS3 is sitting sideways because it gets quite hot if I put it flat on a table.
So, it's a combination of bad heat ventilation causing the plastic on the sled to soften, causing wear on one side of the laser sled and causing misalignments?
I remembered something strange about this earlier, I remember when I was at school and I had my ps1 it was chipped. It stopped reading copied games and would only read retail games then thats when I found out through someone at school that if you turned it upside down it helped so thats the only way I could get it to run burned games. Anyone else experience this with only burned games?
I'm not exactly sure but that is probably close. Sony addressed it by using different materials in the laser assemblies later on, and moving it further from the power supply. Needing the console upside down to run burns suggests quality of the discs was not so great, and apparently being upside down provided a better position or angle for reading those discs.
TBH I just wanted to clear up the rubbish that was in the wiki article, I think what I've put there is close enough, or at least closer to the truth than what was there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_(console)#Hardware_problems
Lol, memories Still, my PS1 managed to last a good 8 years being used upside down until the power went on it (everytime i turned it on i would hear a loud fuzzy noise with no picture). Wish i never threw it out now though (it was one of the audiophile PS1's)
It has soemthing to do the heat that expand one of plastic part in plastic gear that moves the lens side way. That what I have been told.
I actually witnessed the problem first hand after dissembling my laser unit. One side of the lens rail was severely worn, whereas the other was fine. This was on an early model (the "audiophile" version).
