With the fatty PS2s out of the way, I thought I’d have a look at the slim versions. And would you believe it, we’ve actually had some success!

I had two faulty PS2 Slim consoles sitting here. One had a troublesome laser assembly, while the other appeared to have a mainboard or video-output problem. Fortunately, between the two machines, I managed to put together one working PlayStation 2.

The repaired console is now happily reading PlayStation 1 games, including Need for Speed. I haven’t tested whether it can read DVD movies or PlayStation 2 games properly, but for the moment I’m rather pleased to have something working!

While poking around the other consoles, I also discovered that one of the larger PlayStation 2 machines had a Duo2SE modchip fitted. Another interesting little discovery from the repair bench.

There was still one rather strange problem. When I connected the PS2 Slim through the XRGB-mini Framemeister, the picture was entirely green! At first I wondered whether this might have something to do with Macrovision or another form of copy protection.

Fortunately, the explanation turned out to be much simpler. The console’s video output was configured for component rather than RGB. A quick change in the system settings sorted that out. Sometimes the solution really is that simple!

Different PS2 revisions can use different laser pickups, so it’s worth checking the fitted assembly before ordering a replacement. Any applicable anti-static solder bridge on a new pickup also needs to be dealt with according to the replacement instructions.

At least we’ve got one more PlayStation 2 working. Considering how the earlier repair attempts went, I’ll take that as a victory!

Sources