RIP Hardware - the retro hardware failure thread

[Asura]

So, my PS2 finally conked out. It no longer reads discs, not even DVDs. I've had it for >10 years, but it's a fair bit older than that, being a phat unit that was modded to play Japanese games.

Where the hell do I look to replace that in 20-****ing-22?!?

[speedlolita]

A laser? I picked up a few on AliExpress. Would probably need some fine tuning to get working as desired though.

[Asura]

A laser? I picked up a few on AliExpress. Would probably need some fine tuning to get working as desired though.

Maybe. I've ordered one of those DVDs with little brushes on to clean the lens, just because it's £8 and maybe that'll extend its life for a few years. But I'm not optimistic.

[speedlolita]

When nakamura sent me his PS2 with a suspected laser fault it ended up just being the accumulation of dust/grime on the laser rails, it was preventing the laser from being able to read the full disc. Giving those a good clean and adding a white little lithium grease fixed it right up. This was a SCPH-55000 GT though, so basically the last revision of phat PS2.

[CMcK]

I have three Dreamcast consoles at home one now sporting an ODE but none of the others will read a disc. I've swapped around the lasers, PSUs etc but can't seem to cobble a working system together.

Most retro kit pre 95 does seem to be pretty robust though. Magnetic media is probably the worst offender in my experience. My original STfm FDD died many years ago and the FDD in my Amiga is done. Speccy Microdrives went a long time ago too.

Would like to find someone to refurbish my Vectrex as I just don't trust myself to do it given it's age.

[monel]

I've not had much hardware die, seen plenty though.

I still have a Dreamcast pad that won't work, someone said check the pins but it wasn't that. The pad hasnt been used much.

[Hohum]

I have a PS2 I purchased as faulty a few years ago (wouldn't read discs), taking apart and cleaning the laser/mechanism/regreasing the rails fixed it much like with speedlolita's situation above. This is with a SCPH-30003.

Not had much fail on me personally, although recently I've discovered that my Japanese Saturn has started playing up. Switch it on, just a black screen, won't do anything. Tried changing the battery, no difference. However, if I leave it switched on for five minutes or so, turn it off then on again, everything's fine. Reading around suggests the mainboard probably needs a recap, but to be honest I don't really have the skills or equipment to do that currently (plus it's a VA0.5 revision, so all the caps are surface mounted for extra fun).

[mikejenkins_uk]

Not had much fail on me personally, although recently I've discovered that my Japanese Saturn has started playing up. Switch it on, just a black screen, won't do anything. Tried changing the battery, no difference. However, if I leave it switched on for five minutes or so, turn it off then on again, everything's fine. Reading around suggests the mainboard probably needs a recap, but to be honest I don't really have the skills or equipment to do that currently (plus it's a VA0.5 revision, so all the caps are surface mounted for extra fun).

I would try doing the caps in the power supply/swapping the power supply first before getting onto the motherboard, this is a fairly common failure across a lot of old systems (my Neo Geo PSU had a very leaky through hole cap that did exactly this).

I mostly buy old stuff in a broken state nowadays and the most common failures have been:

RAM chip failure/smokey filter cap failure on 8-bits
RAM chip failure/floppy drive needs cleaning or recap on 16-bits
Surface mount cap leakage on 1990-1993 ish era stuff (just did my Super Famicom yesterday that exhibited no symptoms but several caps had leaked badly).
Laser or mechanical failure on optical media consoles
General solder joint failure on things exposed to mechanical stress like video ports, cartridge slots across all ages

[Hirst]

I've had an original PS2 disc drive fail but on a gradual basis - it could cope with games where they loaded in stages or streamed off the disc slowly enough (GTA:SA) but would ultimately fail on games where it had to read the data quickly and constantly (The Warriors is the main one I remember). Still got it somewhere.

Also had a total of three Xbox 360 red ring failures, two I got fixed under warranty and another one by some guy who lived down the road. Surprisingly one of them was an Asia model and they happily fixed it in this country under warranty - I remember I had to convince the Indian lady on the phone to put the serial number in as she was certain it wasn't the right format but then it worked and she was surprised but happy enough to accept it.

A few Dreamcast resetting failures but that's almost more of a maintenance thing than anything else. Just take it apart and clean those pins and bend back, put back together. Seems to need doing every couple of years.

Finally, my very first failure was the tape drive on my Spectrum 128K +2, I had to take it down to a guy on Morley market who repaired it. Took about a week but came back perfect. Funnily enough at this time it was about 1992 so it really was old news by then, still got it done.

[phillv85]

I've been fairly lucky with hardware over the years. The only issues I've ever had are with my near launch PS2 which gave up reading discs around the release of PES6 (regreasing etc. didn't fix this one, the laser was properly dead), a 360 which RROD'd and the replacement 360 I bought for that is struggling to read discs now (I suspect that's just dust, but I also have a slim PAL one so I've just used that, also got slim NTSC-J and NTSC-U ones). I also had a junk PS1 from Yahoo Auctions Japan that I'm sure won't work (rusty) but I'll never find out as it'll probably blow my electricity supply if I plug it in

[Asura]

Cleaner disc arrived, used it, no dice. Looks like this is a bigger job. Anyone here maintain PS2s?

[Wools]

I've had several console failures over the years, it always brakes my heart!

My final bit of retro hardware was my Dreamcast and that kept resetting but I was able to fix it. Eventually though, the controller ports started dying and after not getting the VGA > HDMI solution I wanted around 8 years ago, I chucked it out and came round to PC emulation.

Yes, it's not the same as having the console hooked up and using correct peripherals but it's far more convenient and in some ways, far better as a user experience. Using ReDream with a new and wireless Xbox Series S/X controller on a high resolution monitor playing F355 Challenge or playing Free Run Sega Rally through RetroArch (Or Model 2 Emulator for Arcade perfect Sega Rally) is such a sweet shop of joy, I just don't want to go back to original hardware.

Anyway, my condolances for your PS2 [MENTION=5941]Asura[/MENTION].

[Asura]

Yes, it's not the same as having the console hooked up and using correct peripherals but it's far more convenient and in some ways, far better as a user experience. Using ReDream with a new and wireless Xbox Series S/X controller on a high resolution monitor playing F355 Challenge or playing Free Run Sega Rally through RetroArch (Or Model 2 Emulator for Arcade perfect Sega Rally) is such a sweet shop of joy, I just don't want to go back to original hardware.

Yeah; I'm totally down for getting rid of all retro stuff and going with new hardware. I've maintained the PS2 though because it's one of those machines like the Saturn, where we're probably still quite far off universal compatibility on modest hardware.

[wakka]

Unless you are handy enough to fix it (I know personally I wouldn’t be), I would look for a clean used example on eBay and soft mod it with freeMCboot. I’m like you in that I have an old chipped unit, but these days it can all be done via soft mod quite easily I believe. Speedy knows more in this regard (as ever).

[speedlolita]

You don't even need a laser if you go the fmcb/opl route. I have 6 PS2s and about 100 games but I pretty much only run games from the SSD in one of my 50k units.