Playstation 2, last chance

[John Smith]

Hi
my son has a PS2, version 4, I think, (eight screws in the bottom). It
stopped loading and sometimes freezing, getting worse over a period of
weeks. I've done all the usual stuff - cleaning, increasing the magnet
strength, adjusting the angle of the laser (turning the little white
gogwheel) until I'm cross-eyed. I'm told I can't adjust the voltage on
this model. Now it's much better - every game loads superbly, quicker
than ever, the memory card loads up and the game starts.
Only thing now is that the games freeze, especially when changing
location, or going on "missions" and the message "Error reading disc"
shows after a couple of minutes play.
I'd be grateful if anyone knows of any other fix I might try - it
feels like it's so close to working it would be a shame to give up on
it
Kind regards
John UK

 

[James Sweet]

Hi
my son has a PS2, version 4, I think, (eight screws in the bottom). It
stopped loading and sometimes freezing, getting worse over a period of
weeks. I've done all the usual stuff - cleaning, increasing the magnet
strength, adjusting the angle of the laser (turning the little white
gogwheel) until I'm cross-eyed. I'm told I can't adjust the voltage on
this model. Now it's much better - every game loads superbly, quicker
than ever, the memory card loads up and the game starts.
Only thing now is that the games freeze, especially when changing
location, or going on "missions" and the message "Error reading disc"
shows after a couple of minutes play.
I'd be grateful if anyone knows of any other fix I might try - it
feels like it's so close to working it would be a shame to give up on
it
Kind regards
John UK

Does Sony offer flat rate servicing? It sounds like you've done just about
everything you can easily do on your own.

 

[Max Harding vk3jin]

I have repaired a few of these and found the main reason for the same faults
as yours is CAPS. get yourself an ESR meter and chech the surface mounted
Electrolytic caps (ie the silver one's) these go very high ESR when
replaced your unit should work. do not fiddle with the adjustable pots that
is not the fault.

Max.

 

[Daremo]

I had one of these, (not sure of version) which I totally screwed up. I was
adjusting the voltage at the laser and completely tore the head off of the
little pot there. I was going to ebay it for parts, when a guy emails me a
phone number for Sony. He says it's such a known problem that they're
repairing them under warranty. So my wife calls them, I tell her not to
offer that I was inside of it, but to tell them if they asked. There were
NO QUESTIONS ASKED. I fully expected them to get the unit and tell my I was
SOL since I'd bunged it up, but I got a repair at NO COST. They set up RMA,
I did have to pay for shipping, though. This was more than 6 months ago,
and if you email me at ibleedblack AT austin DOT rr DOT com I'll try to find
the phone number tonight. I also have a "How to fix Playstation 2 Disc Read
Error" pdf, but it pretty much says all the things that you've already
tried.

Daremo

 

[LASERandDVDfan]

my son has a PS2, version 4, I think, (eight screws in the bottom).

A model number would be a better descriptor of the console version.

I've done all the usual stuff - cleaning, increasing the magnet
strength, adjusting the angle of the laser (turning the little white
gogwheel) until I'm cross-eyed. I'm told I can't adjust the voltage on
this model.

"Magnet strength?"

First off, a lot of what you have done was probably unnecessary and usually
acts to make the problem worse.

If you remember the original position of the white gear, reset it! Also make
sure that the leaf spring with the notch at the end is resting in the gear's
teeth on its left side and not underneath the gear itself.

Secondly, if the console had a lot of dust in the drive, you would also have to
relubricate mechanical parts to allow the drive traverse to function smoothly
after cleaning by airblasting.

If you only cleaned the dust out and didn't bother to relube the wormgear,
pickup slider tracks, and the pickup's sleeve bearings for those sliders with
high quality molytone grease, then it's no wonder why you would still have
problems.

Sony didn't really use enough lubrication in those mechas and the dust tends to
dry out what little lube there is on those things.

One sign of this problem is when it has a harder time reading PS-2 CD-ROMs
(blue-bottoms) than PS-2 DVD-ROMs (sliver-bottoms).

I'm told I can't adjust the voltage on
this model.

And you shouldn't because tweaking the laser gain potentiometers on the pickup
doesn't really work effectively anyways.

And, there are two pots for this. One for the IR laser for CD and the other
for the red laser for DVD.

If the pickup is worn enough to the point that it's "weak," replacement of the
pickup is really the only reliable fix.

Now it's much better - every game loads superbly, quicker
than ever, the memory card loads up and the game starts.
Only thing now is that the games freeze, especially when changing
location, or going on "missions" and the message "Error reading disc"
shows after a couple of minutes play.
I'd be grateful if anyone knows of any other fix I might try - it
feels like it's so close to working it would be a shame to give up on it

I suggest reseting all the adjustments back the way they were, airblasting the
pickup and drive clean of any dust, cleaning the objective lens, and
relubricating the kicker wormgear and slider tracks with high quality
medium-to-low viscosity grease. - Reinhart