I Bought Two RARE "TEST" PS2's But They're Broken - Let's Try To Save Them!
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I Bought Two RARE "TEST" PS2's But They're Broken - Let's Try To Save Them! I paid $600 for both of these PlayStation 2 Test consoles. Of course they are broken so I get to try to fix them. Both of them have issues with their disc drives and it's up to me to see if I can get them working and playing games again!
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Xbox One Dev Kit Repair Video: kzhead.info/sun/gZaNmZWsgoGYeK8/bejne.html
Repeating my comment from there: That's not an Xbox One (Durango) devkit, but an Xbox Series X (Scarlett) one.
hey is there a way to fix a mounting bracket for a amd ryzen 5 2600 with a cool master fan and heat sink with latch for a a320mh motherboard if a bracket with the latch breaks off for heat also love your video they help alot
That 40gb drive was pretty much made for FF11 online but some other games did allow for data installs i think resident evil outbreak was one of the games so things could load faster and reduce ping online I think a secondary plan was they were really going hard on the idea that your ps2 could also be a linux operating system pc much like how ps3 had otherOS at one point Sonys idea with ps2 really was one living room device that can do everything your computer can do hence why microsoft created the og xbox to save themselves from losing the pc market which at the time was heading into the living room
Don't trip Steve! The motto is "fix it until it's broken" even more!! 😄
8:39 you know, if you take it that ban off your disc tray you could boil it with hot water and it will shrink back normal size and when you done with that ban, you can put back in the disc tray it will work great okay 👍
At Sony, we used to have a room called the "Soak Test" room where these TEST PS2s would be used to run soak tests for multiple revs of a title on a different screens over night. This room was always very hot due to 30 or so consoles in there. This is awesome.
I'm not sure what campus you were on but I remember that room in the San Diego offices. :)
@@sirflimflam FC FPQA I was sentence to 5 years of SOCOM.
@@KosmoCrisis Boy that's a lot of SOCOM. MotorStorm had me in its clutches for basically years as well between other occasional projects, as the base game and DLC dragged on
@@sirflimflam SOCOM Confrontation patch 1.50 was the last thing we completed before being laid off in 2009. They need to bring back Motorstorm and SOCOM.
@@KosmoCrisissocom is awesome
Those aren't dev kits, they're debug units. Also, it looks like you can replace the bottom of the melted one with the bottom from a retail 30001.
I instantly thought the exact same thing
I assume they have the same outside shell so you're right about that
I was about to say the same.
@@dustinsteele3069 Those are not even the first and second generation PS2, the on and off bottom was connected with cable and not ribbon with the early model, also did not mount on the top shell, after that the next two model were built with new shell and many design change. 3000(1) means the 3rd generation, (1) for US NTSC region.
dev kits are BIG
The second PS2 is not really fixed: The disc tray doesn't fully opens and closes back after a brief period of time. You'll notice the blue blinking light, it will stop blinking when the disc tray is fully opened or fully closed. Great video, I enjoy watching you repair all kind of stuff. :)
Yeah I notice he had to insert a portion of the disk into the console in order to actually get it fully into the disc tray at the end there. Still works better than before though
Doesn’t look fixed to me…adding grease to an issue where no grease is needed seems a little like halfway fixed if you didn’t really find the issue why it’s stopping in the first place
@@Jr0890 adding grease to the sliding plastic bits can help mechanical parts move more smooth and quiet BUT it should indeed not be needed to fix the issues especailly when there is no sign that any lubrication came from the factory
I noticed that too, did he test it with the original one off camera or something because if the white pieces were identical then the original disc tray should have worked.
Used to happen to me. It's the piece where you have screws that need to be worked. Can't quite remember but it's a sliding part and there's a certain way to insert it and the tray.
I really think it’s worth checking into if there is anything on that hard drive in the second unit. It’s very possible it could have some demos or betas from games that were developed on there and if so would be a great thing to archive for preservation purposes. Love your videos btw
Yeah there could be some really interesting stuff on those, got a ps3 test kit a few years back with a bunch of demos for press with it. The disks had which magazine it was made for printed on it and everything which is kinda funny.
Defo got to check that hard drive!!!
When testing a PS2 you should always test with a PS1 game, a PS2 CD Game (Blue Disk) and a PS2 DVD game (Silver) as it may work for 1 but not the others due to potential laser issue.
Don't forget he need to connect the 2nd to computer, and copy games for hard drive and try to run them from HDD.
Made the same comment
My old fat ps2 would always read the dvd games but wouldn’t read dvd movies
@@Brekiccthe HDDs use a non standard filesystem he has to use PFS browser or something like that
At 13:10 the fan connector goes on top not underneath the plate. Thats why the tape was there
The grinding noise/slow moving tray is mainly caused by the railing piece under the disc tray not being well lubricated enough. Doesn't have much to do with the gears
One thing to remember about the PS2 is that the laser would get misaligned which would cause it to not be able to read some types of discs. It would be prudent to keep both CD and DVD based games to test them with because the error was so widespread. Edit: there was also the voltage issue with the later drives too; where the laser would lose power over time. There are two surface mount pots to adjust the power for each diode.
yeah i was gonna say to make sure to test cd games as well as dvds
actualy in 39k and 50k models you could change the voltage of the driver with a solder and a cable. 20 years later my ps2 still works-
Also he literally showed off no aspects of them being devkit ps2s, as in being able to play backups or dev builds. I'm not skeptical of his integrity, but I think he genuinely may have gotten scammed into buying regular PS2's with different shells
@MrRyanSnyder well tbh i was working as amodder back then doing modchips on the normal version. I never saw the 3 colored connections
@@ShotokanEditor 3 colored connections was from Japan region console and they are early model, you can tell with the protection plate under the laser, I did mod few thousands of different models of PlayStation and Xbox, Wii. What a good time was.😂
Both of them had still working clock battery, you can tell by the blue circles spinning in "main menu" (when cmos battery is dead, there's no clock running and there is only one blue dot on screen, not moving). Pretty amazing, considering the system age and guarantee seal not voided (so most likely these were not opened before). Acutually these old fat ps2 had more often working original batteries then much newer slim models. Great vid as always :)
I was surprised at how good of condition these were in.
@@Tronicsfix Yes, great units, someone must have been taking good care, especially that judging by the working clock battery, they were used regulary rather then just sitting for long time. I'm not sure whether it makes sense from technical perspective, but from my observations with used ps2 systems, battery is more likely to discharge when system is not used for long time, and to last long if used on regular basis. Ones with dead battery often are in better contition as they weren't much used. Funny thing- last year I bought one ps2 5k series that looked and worked like brand new, also it was exceptionally clean inside. Clock was not running and date was default 1.01.2000, 0:00 so I was preparing to dissasemble the system and change the battery, but when I set date and time, it turned out that it was fine as it remembers time setting with no issues. System was really good looking for a 20 year consolse, and the observation with the battery got me thinking I might have been really lucky to get one in this condition, almost like it was never actually used. Funny how much you can tell (or guess) just basing on this tiny battery condition.
Wow didn't know about it. I always wondered why on my PS2 it was stuck.
@@Tronicsfix yea suprisingly a lot of dev hardware ive seen is usually in way better condition than regular household units 👀
To remove the static dot youve got to replace battery, then go to clock in settings, select and stand on day press square and x and voilá!
What's interesting about that hard drive is that it's clearly a Maxtor model but with the Sony branding on the sticker, I think it's much rarer than the debug units themselves.
Original idea of the hard drive add on was for store music or VCD video in the old day as a multimedia player, also sold in limited number, they did have official application disc for it.
@@jxmai7687 It was probably used much more often as the storage for Final Fantasy XI Online. SquareEnix supported the MMO for at least a decade on the PS2. I remember how often people would mention they had to buy the network adapter just to have the hard drive.
Next video should be buying a lot of broken PS2s to see if u can fix them and if u can make money off of it..
That would be interesting. Might have to do that sometime.
A lot of PS3 fats would be cool too!
Oh I’d buy one! My favorite console is the fat ps2. I have a 39000 that needs a laser replaced n the disc tray fixed, but idk how to calibrate the laser after installation
@damascus6480 there is supposedly a new calibration tool that directly writes the flash info inside the disk drive. May have to check it out.
Yeah, +1 for the return of the large batch videos!
Note: when testing PS2's (both phat & slim models) test ALL types of discs to ensure it works. The PS2 play PS1 games, PS2 CD games (black & blue games) and PS2 DVD games (Silver). The lasers have different pots, voltages and etc for each type so its EXTREMELY common to work with 1 or 2 types and not work the others. Until that is done, there is no gurentee that these are fully working. Also if you replace the laser and the console still refuses to read all or certain types of discs use a program called PMAP to essentially recalibrate the console/disc drive to the new laser. PMAP will get 9/10 new lasers to work if after a change they still don't work!
Can you send me a link to this PMAP thing? I can't find it. I've had mixed luck with replacement lasers and would love to learn more about this.
It's awesome that these aren't region locked, it's like the ultimate PS2
Same for the test system PS3 that was shown in someone else's video.
why if I May ask? why is it better then the normal one
He said it right there, no region lock.
@@kbhasi I'm pretty sure PS3 was region free as retail
@@Sestain I think it was region free for ps3 games, but still region locked for backwards compatilbe ps1 games (and ps2 as well on system that were compatible with ps2)
That transition at 15:12 was very well done. Kudos to the video editor!
He’s great.
If only the PS2 was that easy to open lol
Yeah
That hard drive you scored inside number 2 could be worth a fortune to the right homebrew developers.
Yeah, if it has dev builds on it for sure. It is a 40gb drive, though, which is the same size as the ffxi drive. There's a chance it was just someone using it for retail games later on. Legit network adapters are always nice finds anyway.
Not much use... It will have similar contents than a retail HDD
@@GLAAAAARno... You could expect to find dev builds of games on the DTL-T14000 HDD, but not on that HDD....
The drive slowing towards being fully open was a feature, thought it was so cool.
I love how they even kept the font the same for the "TEST" text lol
Love your vids Steve. Take it with a grain of salt, but one thing I learned when servicing copiers was to use water on things like rubber belts, feed tires, etc because alcohol can dry those types of rubber out. We didn't even carry alcohol.
Oh man this takes me back!! I used to use these testkits (and later the gigantic PS3 devkits while they were still sorting out ps3 testkits on the ps3 launch) on a daily basis when I worked for SCEA. This particular device isn't actually a devkit per say, since its purpose was mostly for QA meaning we had more booting options and settings we could change. There were literally hundreds of these things lined up side by side at Sony.
Awesome! I've always wanted one of these. They're not devkits, but debug kits, though they were used together with devkits during game development to test games
In your defense that the PS2 fan connector is pretty flimsy(and seems to be a commonissuenowaday), fan was wayyy too snug, and the wires for the fan are too thin for my liking. A few weeks back I ended up pulling a fan wire, but found a replacement on Amazon that has thicker wires, much quieter, and a 3D printed bracket since the new one is external.
Yep I think most surface mount connectors similar to that one were not soldered down well on ps2 phat. I've ripped one off as well using a tiny tiny bit of force.
This takes me back, I rebuilt a insane amount of PS2's back in the day.
That was pretty cool, never seen a PS2DK before.
that second one still has a slight problem. the drive isn't supposed to go back in by itself and the blue light on the eject button is supposed to stop blinking when you open the tray, so something is still keeping that from fully opening
That DVD tray still isn't fixed. You need to put way more grease on it, especially where the metal rod goes on the side of the tray. You need to take the rod out, clean everything, and then grease it up.
The disk drives on those PS2s were just so prone to failure; I'm really surprised the ones there were even repairable.
One of the things that someone should do is measure and sketch up these plastic pieces in a cadd software so that if you ever need these pieces you can just 3d print one. Would make repair easier
Someone might have had their desk lamp too close to the PS2 TEST unit. A bunch of DVD game cases in the computer furniture we had back in the day at home, got similar damage from a misplaced desk lamp 😅
I love these repair videos! I have a DTL-H30001 and it’s unique as it has a tilt motor which I hear every time the debugging station is turned on or reset!
PS2's are amazing. IMO nothing in this world better than a perfectly working PS2. Such a great console with great games.
That's just nostalgia. The modern consoles are of course far superior. The ps2 had the golden era of arcade racers though but the modern ps3, ps4 and ps5 are much better machines.
it was nice to see these, especially one with the hard drive, that was actually a kit sold by sony that allowed you to run linux on the ps2. I was surprised to see that hard drive was still in it, though I'm guessing it was wiped.
you might be able to use a bottom from a broken ps2 to replace the one that has some melted plastic
I was thinking the same thing.
Had one of these back in 2003, not a clue where it went but amazed how much they go for now
I remember, my fat PS2 had the same exact issue with the disc drive not coming out. I sent that one in for repair. Later, I found a fat PS2 in a dumpster with yet again, the same disc drive issue. That one I actually repaired, since I had no warranty on it. I always thought the drive issue was definitely more widespread.
Love watching you fix it all the time!!
Amazing job bro! Love your channel!
The network card is needed to get an ide hdd connected to the ps2. Which the only official game that actually used it was Final Fantasy 11 and the servers were taken offline a while ago. However, people in the modern day play ps2 games directly off the hdd due to it being way more reliable then the disc drive.
it also was sell with the Linux kit, that required that specific HDD (or one authorized by Sony)
6:05 That gut-wrenching feeling that you've done the same thing you've warned others about haha! Know it all too well and the whole "it happened to me too..." realisation XD.
The fact the harddrive is Sony branded, it may have a test build(s) on it. Definitely worth having someone check out.
When you pulled out the Cabela's disk I was transported me to a completely seperste part of life! I'm like 7 and I remember me and my cousins playing dangerous hunt ALL day and just taking turns on hunts. So awesome
Nicely done Steve!
Nice fixes. My (ordinary) Fat PS2 disc door makes sometimes the "TRR" sound while opening, so good to see what kind of mechanism it has in this video. I think I'll try lubricating it first.
That’s very neat to find these and see them in action Great video btw!
Thanks!
That is sick! I also own one unit. Thanks for reviving them!
Trust me, accidentally ripping the connector of the fan is pretty common when you get into PS2 repairs. It's happened to me more times than I care to admit. I've always tried to steer clear of doing deep cleans for the PS2 because of the fan. Even the tweezers iFixit includes doesn't really help in getting the connector out. Like as though the two plastic components bonded together over time.
some people try to fix it themself and end up damaged more, we have to solder a little extension cable sometime.
I took apart my PS2 fat a few weeks ago and the fan was super difficult to unplug. I was afraid I would rip it off the board too, but I actually managed not to! Unfortunately, I did manage to strip a screw pretty badly the 2nd time I took it apart to check something and ended up having to drill it out... I don't know how I managed to get that screw so tight but I was so upset with myself. Thankfully, I didn't break anything in my drilling efforts and frustrations....
To fully test it, see if it also reads a ps1 game. Those PS2s had different lasers for CDs and DVDs.
I see Steve follows the good old fixer adage.. "If it's broken, break until it's fixed" 😂
Fun fact: HD kit were sold only in Japan for limited number, it is not a test build, t was called hard drive and network connection kit, original idea was work as multimedia center, the network connection for transfer media, also can play point to point network games.
Great fixes!
I took apart many PS2's back in my mid teens, to repair or paint them. Very familiar with them and theyre annoying ribbon cables for the power and eject buttons, that were fixed into the lid. But fortunately later models they built it into the rest separate from the lid. 😅
I’ve seen people switch the PS2s to a noctua fan and it makes it quieter and more efficient. They also have a kit to switch the ps2 to hdmi and it scales and renders it for HD tvs. If you ever work on them again you should look into an upgrade
Never seen a test ps2 before, really love watching your videos
I hadn't either until I bought these, lol
@@Tronicsfix when you play it with friends you could say wanna play some test and they would be so confused lol 😂
I have one of the very first iPhones that came out. It turns on and charges but only half the screen works. The whole screen turns on and it’s visible but you can actually only interact with half of it on the touchscreen. Would you like it for a future video?
The hdd adapter was for hdd on mmo with a network adapter. Most bought it to use with hdd loader of games for home brew😊
That ps2 hdd adapter makes it extremely easy to softmod that ps2 btw...... With the right software you can modify it so that you can backup games directly onto the hdd and play them back. Far superior to the ps2 slim softmod as its able to use sata speeds as apposed to the usb 1.1 that the ps2 had
Nice tip i got off an old Sony bench tech.give the drive belts a rub with some acetone and it brings them back to life,he used to do this on the old laserdisc machine drive belts.
I love your videos! I remember watching the ds repairs!
Thanks! I'll be making another video fixing handhelds hopefully soon.
@@Tronicsfix Awesome! Can’t wait!
I had never seen a PS2 DevKit before, Steve. You got a piece of history right there 🗿🍷
I'm here because this time you broke something, Steve. But hey you fixed it.....with my supervision 😂
The tray sticking can be be fixed by re alignment of the pice where you have the screws.
As soon as i saw that white piece you had to replace, i thought that would be a great candidate for 3d printing replacement parts!
I like how he just brushed over the fact that the first one he showed off was discounted for having a ton of melted plastic on the side and said the only problem seems to be the disc drive comes out slower towards the end
As a tip, add some WD-40 or deoxit to those fan connectors (or any like it) to lubricate the connector so it slides out easier when trying to remove them.
haha, it was the easiest broken part like so many people open the console by themself, the right way is flip it upside done and unscrew, there bottom cover have nothing to connect with, after remove the cover and the power supply, then can see and disconnect the fan cable.
You didnt need to take it all apart to clean the rollers. Easy access through the top like you ended up doing anyway. Plus you can test it while everything is still connected
a good replacement I use for those bands in disk drives are nitrile o-rings.
Hey was just wondering if you could recommend a reasonably priced electric Air blower for cleaning? I've noticed in a couple of videos you use the can of air. Is it worth getting an electric or stick with compressed?
Do you take photos as you disassemble complicated things so you know how to reassemble again, or do you refer to your own video if necessary OR do you just have an amazing memory?
I've had 2 fat Test Units and 1 slim Test Unit. Bought them all when prices were much cheaper. Surprised to see they went up so much.
Love the Cabela's shade
That transition at 15:12 was really smooth
the network and HDD initally happened for Final Fantasy XI online and Everquest online....god those were the days
Did you check both cd roman and dvd? I had to change my laser module as the dvd had failed but the cd rom was ik. So worked for one disc type and not the other!!
This sure brings back some memories of fixing my ps2 some 13 years ago. First a capacitor on the board overheated and made a hole in the bottom case, then the flex cable for the front connectors broke, then the fan died and i had to tape one to the outside and finally the disc drive stopped reading. Considering how expensive they are nowadays i probably should've kept it and fixed it properly. Didn't even bother checking the disc drive before tossing it out and i kinda regret it now.
This inspires me to check out my ps3, the disc drive won't open. Any tips would be great!
Now I don’t fill so bad. I was deep cleaning my PS2 and did the same thing and accidentally removed the fan connector from the board. It’s nice to know even the Pros make mistakes. Question for you though, my connectors broke. What is that piece called because I need to replace it. It’s the part that solders to the board and not the part that’s connected to the fan wires. Any help would be much appreciated.
1000 dollar pluss profit is deffinatly something to write home about! Nice purchase and great fix Steve!
been watching your stuff since 2020, good content as always, keep on going!! 😃
I actually own a fully functional one of these still. Sadly, not one of the ones capable of running burned disks, but having a region-lock free console is still great. Not a dev kit though, at least not without being attached to oversized tool system as well. These were just debugging units on their own. none of these can run retail DVDs from ANY region though.
Was only 2 days ago I took my old PS2 FAT apart to give it a much needed refurbishment and it’s running well
Thank you for your great lessons. Thanks to you I was not afraid to open my PS5 and my laptop computer and give it a good cleaning.🥰 :) Keep up the good work.
The one with the HDD is like the one i bought with the final fantasy bundle back in the day.
It was the network card with it allow you play against other player with Final Fantasy one to one.
What do you use to connect your older consoles to the tv so they look so crips?
it is sooo satisfying to watch when u put this apart
I just bought a graphing calculator that works fine, but is sticky on the face of the calculator and the case. Any advice for cleaning it
Thank you for your excellent videos. I have a suggestion, you can use a silicon grease on the dent, and the sliding parts of the disk drive. It will help to slide better. These types of disk drives used to have that grease back in the days, but with the time it got dry or dissipate. Greetings from Costa Rica.
He has greased the gears and rails in other videos, and addressed it in this video. Grease looked OK so he skipped replacing it.
Oh man, I thought you wrote TEST on them for the thumbnail! Pretty neat they made em like that.
Man the PS2 is quaint these days but it was such a big deal when it was new. Sony really nailed it shipping a DVD player that had such good video games too. And I'm serious, to this day I'm convinced that's why PS2 was such a success. Because it cost less than standalone DVD players from the same era, AND it played video games AND even regular CDs too. It was super versatile and I absolutely used all 3 aspects a ton back in the day!
@Tronicsfix Make sure to check the hdd. There could be a game build that might have been in dev on it or some other gaming history would hate to lose it if there is any.
He won't read this comment.
Good job ❤ ilove you fix
How much is for the repair? I have few year old laptop and the task bar gone out like the bottom right got cracked somehow Just slowly glitches then black bar over the task and more gray lines
Man....1000 dollars for basically the same hardware of something I used to get from thrift stores for 5 bucks or out of dumpsters like half a decade ago. Even normal fat ps2's have skyrocketed in price lately. And I used to not even be able to give them away!
Geez, just realized tronics is almost at 1.5 million subs, awesome to see the channel so big, I used to watch you way back when you were at 20K
Considering these are debug kits I'd love to see what the IDE drive has on it.
You might be able to salvage the void sticker with some IPA. Use a blunt syringe and squirt IPA as you gently peel it. After the IPA evaporates you can restock the sticker to the case.
Those tiny connectors are a nightmare. If I had some tiny, pincer-like pliers, I'd feel a lot more confident dealing with them. I find it's easier to try to hook out the connector, one side at a time, with a thin blade rather than gripping the entire thing. I'm sure that's not the ideal method though... Did the hard drive have anything interesting on it?
The second one still had blue blinking led after the repair, so the drive didn’t get all the way out.
@Tronicsfix Man, I really miss the PlayStation 2. My PS2 did have a disc drive issue. It got stuck. I remember breaking the little attachment of the discussion tray to get the tray to open.
I wish I could buy one of these. One would fit in nice with my PS1 and PS3 debug consoles.