- Initial Repair Attempt
- Recap (fixed)
- Region Free BIOS install
Initial Repair Attempt
Customer description of the fault was that a region mod was performed years ago and last year the console stopped displaying video. I explained that I would attempt to trace the fault but I cannot guarantee a solution can be found, and it could be a lot of things. Customer agreed to proceed with that understanding.
The following things have been tested / attempted to find the fault
- Swap the PSU with a known working one to discard capacitor issues in the PSU – no change
- Swap the CD drive with a known working one to discard any issues in the drive causing power problems – no change
- Changed the battery (usually not a cause of video issues but worth testing just in case) -no change
- Powering the console with 5v external power supply to attempt minimum boot and remove the 12v rail in case that was causing an issue – no change
- Disconnect the soldered wires of the region mod. This should still work for 60Hz (my monitor works both in 50 and 60hz) – no change
- Tests all inductors and 0 ohm resistors in the board as they are known to fail – didn’t find any faulty component
- Reflowed the video connector as some of the pins seemed slightly loose – no change
- Visual inspection of all the chips in the board to look for damaged traces or corrosion – didn’t find anything
- Test the 220uf capacitors of nearby the video connector with an ESR meter – values were within tolerance for all of them
During the visual inspection, I found many components that had been resoldered or replaced that were not related with the video mod, some examples below
My assessment is that the region mod is not causing the black screen and “no signal”. As there are signs of work on many components in the underneath of the console, is impossible to know if something else was changed and why. The only remaining thing to do would be to recap the console in case bad capacitors are still present, but that again might or might not work.
Recap (Fixed)
The console was subsequently recapped as agreed with the customer as the next step to make it work. Thankfully the image and sound returned after this.
When assembling the console, a few spots of rust where removed. It doesn’t look great but it won’t continue to rust.
When testing the console with a game, the optical drive seemed to struggle with some of the games. It is likely to get worse with time. In that case, we’d recommend to service the disc drive (clean, change lubricant of the gears, etc) and replace the capacitors of the PSU (which provide the 12v to the disc drive and failing capacitors might provide an unsteady voltage). However these are not guaranteed to solve the problem. Worse case we recommend installing an Optical Drive Emulator like Fenrir.
Region Free BIOS install
Customer also requested a change of the BIOS to a region Free BIOS. A japanese version of the BIOS was installed First step was to remove the existing BIOS, and that was done with hot air. The pads where retinned and then the solder was removed with solder wick to prepare for the new BIOS chip installation.
Modern BIOS replacement chips are not exactly the same as stock ones (they have 4 pins extra). Those pins need to be grounded together in one side, and connected to the VCC 5v pin on the other side. The chip is also slightly too wide, so all the legs need to be bent slightly so that it would fit in the motherboard pads.
Final reassemble and test of the console with a japanese import and a PAL game
