PS2 Video Error

[Cryomancer]

For some reason, my PS2 will randomly get a strange video error where the screen will freeze with some random pixel placement. Audio is still playing normally, just the video freezes up. Doesn't seem to be a pattern really, it doesn't do it more when it's hot or anything. Applying some compressed air seems to help sometimes, but basically the thing willl just randomly have play issues, usually right at startup, or run perfectly fine. Anyone got a clue?

[omnedon]

Is the fan loud, or silent?

[Cryomancer]

It's working, you can hear it if you put your ear close to it, so it's not really silent or loud.

[Cryomancer]

OK, now that I've taken a closer listen as it was doing it again, the fan was pretty loud afterall.

[omnedon]

Try disassembling and cleaning it. Most graphics troubles are heat related.

[Cryomancer]

Yeah, it probably could use a cleaning again, I'll pop it oopen later on.

Any opinion / experience with these things? http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11319&item=8157451902&rd=1

Just as a possible added precaution maybe.

edit: bah, i went through with some compressed air and it's still doing it occasionally. I really can't imagine a heat problem really being the sorce as it will do it sometimes on a cold start after days of inactivity, then after a couple resets work fine for several hours. Any other ideas on what could be the issue?

[Cryomancer]

Gah, still having issue with it, seems to be getting slightly worse. Is there any other possibility other than heat? Could it have memory corruption like my saturn did? This thing has been used and fiddled with in tons of ways, i'm not it's original owner. Is there a specific screw / gear adjustment that can produce this problem? It is using a flip-top cover now as well, but it had this video problem previous to that, actually it's why he gave it to me. it never really had DRE errors before, and doesn't now, just this obnoxious video freezing. Is there a way to hard reset the onboard memory, would driver updates help, ect?

I hate to say you're wrong but I can't believe that it's heat, since it does this from a cold start, and when it doesn't do it, it will play fine all day. Correct me if i'm wrong on this though.

[omnedon]

I still say it's heat. Once a CPU like the EE is heat damaged, it can become heat sensitive with lower and lower temperatures causing problems.

It could be something else. If it was on my workbench, I'd pop out the whole mobo, and pop another one in from parts. Not fancy, but time effective, and how I do it. Troubleshooting mobo level graphics failures sounds gauranteed to be time consuming, with no gaurantee of results.

Mobo swap works 100% of the time. :)

Sorry!

[Cryomancer]

Hah, understandable.

I noticed today that it seemed to work better depending on the surface it was on...I think it may have been on a not-so-flat surface before, but hell, I dunno. I'll deal with it for now as it's been nice since yesterday, if it keeps up too much i might give you a call though. Thanks for the advice though.

[Cryomancer]

So, I think I might have fixed the damn thing.

There's a white gear in the back past the laser, after playing with that for awhile I found a setting in which I can play games for hours at a time without freezing...is this something safe to have played with? Seems to have done the PS2 well though, oddly.

[omnedon]

???

You were having a disc read problem? But you were describing a video artifact problem (a totally different thing).

Adjusting the camber only for disc read can work, sorta. It usually breaks DVD playback. Movies will read, but skip and stutter during playback.

Your problem and fix are a great illustration of why I don't usually give PS2 repair advice on te forum.. What you descibe and what I read have a huge gulf between them. @_@

[Cryomancer]

Yeah, that's why it's freakin weird. I'll go run a series of disc tests on it now. But for whatever reason, a drive adjustment has fixed video freezing. I don't pretend to understand why.

[Cryomancer]

OK, another plot twist.

Ran an audio cd, dvd movie, and non-blueback ps2 game fine. insert a blueback, and it starts erroring again. Now my working setting doesn't work, horray. Maybe it just doesn't like bluebacks or something.

edit:, alright, got ti working again, guess no bluebacks for this ps2 and it should be ok....weirdass machine.

edit2: not working again! all it got was a reset too, funky. guess i'll let it cool off for a bit and then try and get it into a stable run again, bah.

[jonjandran]

If you're having to adjust the white gear to get it to read different media, then it almost has to be a dying laser.

[Cryomancer]

Dunno, this thing is crazy. omnedon, could you give me an estimate on what getting some work done on this thing would run? IE, it probably needs either a new board or a new drive, or both. It's a fliptop cased model 1, PM me some prices and I'll get back to you when i have a little cash.