Finally! Thanks for posting this, glad I caught it! I can't believe how long this took to come about. All those years of trying to dial in a laser. Use to mess with the pots so much and the parts of the tray. Picked one up immediately. Have three or four systems I gave up on with a handful of lasers. They always ended up working but in the worst way. Excited for this.
Those resistance values are meaningless. If you're adjusting those potentiometers you need to hook up an oscilloscope to the PS2 RF test point on the main board and play both a DVD and CD whilst monitoring the eye pattern on the oscilloscope. DVD should read about 800mv peak to peak and CD should read about 650mv peak to peak. If you do this, make sure the PS2 is playing a track on the outer most edge of the disc, so for DVD play the final chapter of a movie and for CD play the final track of a music disc. You'll want to set the oscilloscope to voltage range of 20mv/div and about 0.2us/div time scale. That ensures that the PS2 optical pickup is out the outer edge of the disc and you're adjusting the power levels to account for disc wobble. The outer edges of a disc have the most wobble. Resistance values on the pots are completely meaningless as each individual laser is different.
Nice, ran P.M.A.P. on a bunch of PS2s a few months back after installing some new lasers and it made a world of difference. Good to see it getting some more attention.
I learned a lot from this tool. And one thing to keep note of is to always update your Eeprom and set to defaults after tuning. This will speed up boot times if you encounter any slow boot issues. If your PS2 also doesn't read discs at all despite having a working laser, no blown fuses and no dead driver chips. Also make sure to update the Eeprom and set everything to defaults within the Eeprom settings menu. This should at the very least get your PS2 to at least try to read discs instead of not reading or spinning them at all.
my mind just blow up like fireworks! this is what i was looking literally for years! wow... just wow... thanks for sharing this video. it's better than pure gold for me and my shop
I was tinkering with pmap today with my ps2 fat and something that I learn is that the quality of the dvd matters a lot while doing the jitter 256 step. With a burn dvd was getting 4000 to 6000 and no matter what i did it wasn't going down. Then I tried with a original ps2 game (even if it is not in ideal condition) and boom...3000 and then with adjustment i finally managed to get in 0XXX-1XXX territory. Cool piece of software.
Had a 30001 spitting out the jitter error during the automatic elect for DVD-SL as well. Turned up the gain on the DVD POT just a smidge, which got the jitter down into the 1s, and would finally pass the automatic elect adjustments. While the 30001 I had is a later revision, I wonder how this process works with the launch day 30001s that had a tilt adjustment motor (where the white adjustment gear is located). I'd imagine all you'd be doing here is automatic elect adjustments on those units, because the drive is supposed to automatically adjust the tilt with that extra motor, so there is no mechanical adjustment on those systems other than maybe the black screw that adjusts the laser on the rail.
That controller port ribbon cable resting on the shield when you turn the console on may have blown a fuse inside the console. If your controllers don't vibrate anymore, a fuse is gone. I've definitely done that before.
Hello there modzville Thanks for this video, Got some ps2's with aftermarket laser fitted (they work out of the box but somehow not reading Dual layer discs very well), might giving this a try
Question. Those 2 white adjustment gears, are they not supposed to be turned equally ? Otherwise the laser is going to ride at a different angle at the beginning vs the end of the disk ? It also seems like they simply adjust the laserdistance from the beginning vs the end of the disk. So it seems like you put the laser at the outer edge of the disk and adjust them together to get a good reading. Then put the laser at the beginning of the disk and see if it's the same more or less. I could be wrong, but mechanically that is what seems to happen.
Hi, I have the same motherboard GH-23, and KHS-400C laser. I carefully wired up everything in the same way as you showed. But after I assembled the console, tray mechanism is not responding. Eject button light is blinking fast and nothing happens. I've checked all ribbon cables. PMAP returns error 0cfd READ MECHACON MD: 101 at any option. The console didn't read discs before, and now the disc feeding mechanism doesn't either.
This is quite amazing, ive tried it on 2 different ps2s, with 3 different lasers , swapping them on both systems. On my 30004, all of the 3 lasers I could get to around 1000 something, on my 50004 though, I could get all 3 of them on around 3000s, so yeah, in general I think the 3xxxxx ps2s you can adjust way better than the 5xxxxxs But, despite all of that, I believe that if the laser is whack then its whack, you cant totally save it. I could get one of them to read dvds perfectly, but not read cds at all, I could get another one on the 1000s, but it still wouldnt read anything, even if I messed with the pots (which you shouldnt, if you have to the laser will shortly die for sure), and lasty, my third one, it was kinda meh. I also got it on the 1000s with pmap, but it would perform mediocre, couldnt read dvds or cds properly. So in general, I think your best bet is getting a good laser AND doing this, to get the best out of your ps2. If you get a meh laser and do this as well youll just improve things slightly. Its definitely a good idea to try, but I think most of the time itll be hit or miss And where can you get proper lasers? Well, nowhere, all of the ones you can find online are ripped out of ps2s, theyre not new. These arent being made and have never been sold new, so you can just keep buying from aliexpress (wasting 25 bucks each time) until you find an acceptable one, but for around 25 bucks you can get a new ps2, so why bother?
ok. so the FT323 devices work fine then? there was a reddit post that said I needed to use an arduino uno to do this, but I don't have one. I've got like three of those small serial-usb adapters
Hey man great vid. I'm also into PS2's. Have you ever had finicky PS2 video output ports that don't display colors properly/sometimes lose video signal and you have to manually fidget the video cable around to get it to display the image properly? (I don't know, maybe it's a loose video port? 🤷) Do you have any experience in fixing them so they don't do this anymore? Thanks.
Tried this on an OEM laser, worked just like it should, thanks so much for the info! I am currently trying this on a replacement laser, and I get Rx-command error 122 when I INIT SKEW. Any ideas on a cause and/or fix?
@@ModzvilleUSA just tried that too and having the same issue. is that the only thing that worked for you? Also happens when I tried automatic elect adjustment
@@greytechdotshop some take some experimenting, swapping lasers around ect. There’s newer builds might work as well as a gui bios. I’ll those to the description when I get home
This hasn't worked for me at all. wired it all up and I have a usb version of the FT232 Usb to UART Device that plugs straight into my pc. swapped over the Tx and Rx and also tried different types of wire. Also tried shortening the wire. Tried everything I can think of and pmap can not detect it at all. Anyone have any ideas?
@@ModzvilleUSA I ended up getting it to work when plugged into a laptop but doesn't work on my pc. followed it all until I started the cd part and no matter what I tried it kept either doing nothing or it would say something about it could be a sanyo drive? No matter what I tried it would spin the cd so couldn't move past that point. Ended up just putting it back together as couldn't get lower than a 3 and it shouldn't spin CDs
Very in-depth explanation! Thank you so much for showcasing! Glad to see the community is still keeping the PS2 alive after all these years!
Finally! Thanks for posting this, glad I caught it! I can't believe how long this took to come about. All those years of trying to dial in a laser. Use to mess with the pots so much and the parts of the tray. Picked one up immediately. Have three or four systems I gave up on with a handful of lasers. They always ended up working but in the worst way. Excited for this.
This software looks AWESOME, thanks for shining the limelight on it!
This is incredible work. One thing that I didn't see covered was the actual resistance of the cd/dvd values.
Those resistance values are meaningless. If you're adjusting those potentiometers you need to hook up an oscilloscope to the PS2 RF test point on the main board and play both a DVD and CD whilst monitoring the eye pattern on the oscilloscope. DVD should read about 800mv peak to peak and CD should read about 650mv peak to peak. If you do this, make sure the PS2 is playing a track on the outer most edge of the disc, so for DVD play the final chapter of a movie and for CD play the final track of a music disc. You'll want to set the oscilloscope to voltage range of 20mv/div and about 0.2us/div time scale.
That ensures that the PS2 optical pickup is out the outer edge of the disc and you're adjusting the power levels to account for disc wobble. The outer edges of a disc have the most wobble.
Resistance values on the pots are completely meaningless as each individual laser is different.
Nice, ran P.M.A.P. on a bunch of PS2s a few months back after installing some new lasers and it made a world of difference. Good to see it getting some more attention.
absolutely a video on slims i would say
I learned a lot from this tool. And one thing to keep note of is to always update your Eeprom and set to defaults after tuning. This will speed up boot times if you encounter any slow boot issues. If your PS2 also doesn't read discs at all despite having a working laser, no blown fuses and no dead driver chips. Also make sure to update the Eeprom and set everything to defaults within the Eeprom settings menu. This should at the very least get your PS2 to at least try to read discs instead of not reading or spinning them at all.
my mind just blow up like fireworks! this is what i was looking literally for years! wow... just wow... thanks for sharing this video. it's better than pure gold for me and my shop
My man Modzville! I appreciate you dude!
Thanks for sharing this. I'll definitelly give it a try. Yes, please, yes! I'd love to see a video on slims! 🙂
I was tinkering with pmap today with my ps2 fat and something that I learn is that the quality of the dvd matters a lot while doing the jitter 256 step. With a burn dvd was getting 4000 to 6000 and no matter what i did it wasn't going down. Then I tried with a original ps2 game (even if it is not in ideal condition) and boom...3000 and then with adjustment i finally managed to get in 0XXX-1XXX territory. Cool piece of software.
That's insane! Had no idea this existed, I'll have to give this a try. I wish they had something similar for GameCube.
Voultar talked about replacing one of the caps on the DVD disc drive, a SMD ceramic cap, to fix GCs without tuning the laser
This is amazing. Thanks for making this video. It's going to help a lot as I replace lasers with new ones and a lot of times they don't work as good.
Absolutely love this video. Thank you for sharing this. Always have wanted to be able to do something like this for PS2 lasers.
Had a 30001 spitting out the jitter error during the automatic elect for DVD-SL as well.
Turned up the gain on the DVD POT just a smidge, which got the jitter down into the 1s, and would finally pass the automatic elect adjustments.
While the 30001 I had is a later revision, I wonder how this process works with the launch day 30001s that had a tilt adjustment motor (where the white adjustment gear is located). I'd imagine all you'd be doing here is automatic elect adjustments on those units, because the drive is supposed to automatically adjust the tilt with that extra motor, so there is no mechanical adjustment on those systems other than maybe the black screw that adjusts the laser on the rail.
I just acquired 5 fat PS2s, most with issues playing disks. Definitely picking this up asap
Really appreciate the video I have several consoles in dire need of laser calibration.
That controller port ribbon cable resting on the shield when you turn the console on may have blown a fuse inside the console. If your controllers don't vibrate anymore, a fuse is gone. I've definitely done that before.
Hello there modzville
Thanks for this video, Got some ps2's with aftermarket laser fitted (they work out of the box but somehow not reading Dual layer discs very well), might giving this a try
I would love a video about P.M.A.P. on PS2 Slims!
I hope something comes out soon for PS1
Question. Those 2 white adjustment gears, are they not supposed to be turned equally ?
Otherwise the laser is going to ride at a different angle at the beginning vs the end of the disk ?
It also seems like they simply adjust the laserdistance from the beginning vs the end of the disk.
So it seems like you put the laser at the outer edge of the disk and adjust them together to get a good reading.
Then put the laser at the beginning of the disk and see if it's the same more or less.
I could be wrong, but mechanically that is what seems to happen.
Nice explanation Guy!!!
Thanks fella!
Hi, I have the same motherboard GH-23, and KHS-400C laser. I carefully wired up everything in the same way as you showed. But after I assembled the console, tray mechanism is not responding. Eject button light is blinking fast and nothing happens. I've checked all ribbon cables. PMAP returns error 0cfd READ MECHACON MD: 101 at any option.
The console didn't read discs before, and now the disc feeding mechanism doesn't either.
This is quite amazing, ive tried it on 2 different ps2s, with 3 different lasers , swapping them on both systems. On my 30004, all of the 3 lasers I could get to around 1000 something, on my 50004 though, I could get all 3 of them on around 3000s, so yeah, in general I think the 3xxxxx ps2s you can adjust way better than the 5xxxxxs
But, despite all of that, I believe that if the laser is whack then its whack, you cant totally save it. I could get one of them to read dvds perfectly, but not read cds at all, I could get another one on the 1000s, but it still wouldnt read anything, even if I messed with the pots (which you shouldnt, if you have to the laser will shortly die for sure), and lasty, my third one, it was kinda meh. I also got it on the 1000s with pmap, but it would perform mediocre, couldnt read dvds or cds properly.
So in general, I think your best bet is getting a good laser AND doing this, to get the best out of your ps2. If you get a meh laser and do this as well youll just improve things slightly. Its definitely a good idea to try, but I think most of the time itll be hit or miss
And where can you get proper lasers? Well, nowhere, all of the ones you can find online are ripped out of ps2s, theyre not new. These arent being made and have never been sold new, so you can just keep buying from aliexpress (wasting 25 bucks each time) until you find an acceptable one, but for around 25 bucks you can get a new ps2, so why bother?
bro has Driver, respect ❤
ok. so the FT323 devices work fine then? there was a reddit post that said I needed to use an arduino uno to do this, but I don't have one. I've got like three of those small serial-usb adapters
Hey man great vid. I'm also into PS2's. Have you ever had finicky PS2 video output ports that don't display colors properly/sometimes lose video signal and you have to manually fidget the video cable around to get it to display the image properly? (I don't know, maybe it's a loose video port? 🤷) Do you have any experience in fixing them so they don't do this anymore? Thanks.
Tried this on an OEM laser, worked just like it should, thanks so much for the info! I am currently trying this on a replacement laser, and I get Rx-command error 122 when I INIT SKEW. Any ideas on a cause and/or fix?
I’ve had those issues as well. I’ve gotten around it by setting defaults in eeprom settings. Make sure to back it up first though
@@ModzvilleUSA just tried that too and having the same issue. is that the only thing that worked for you? Also happens when I tried automatic elect adjustment
@@greytechdotshop some take some experimenting, swapping lasers around ect. There’s newer builds might work as well as a gui bios. I’ll those to the description when I get home
@@ModzvilleUSA Okay thanks so much!!! I'll experiment with some different lasers and ribbons in the meantime
@@greytechdotshop Test build and GUI version. Description has been updated as well :D
github.com/AKuHAK/PMAP/actions/runs/6762938156
i get to init skew and it says DVD-SL initialization failed
I love your intro❤❤❤❤
Nice brother.
Similar to mechacon elf?
Tried running pmap and got c++ errors and installed vc runtimes and now it just doesn’t open
is this only a fix for fat models?
awesome job👋👍
can i do this to my slim ps2 ?
does it work on slim? modchiped?
Thx nice video
I known that from computer booter, he also uses that when making ps2's know him? He makes all this frankie ps3s on live stream here on youtube
Love booter! Yea I heard tale of PMAP from him and his community
This hasn't worked for me at all. wired it all up and I have a usb version of the FT232 Usb to UART Device that plugs straight into my pc. swapped over the Tx and Rx and also tried different types of wire. Also tried shortening the wire. Tried everything I can think of and pmap can not detect it at all. Anyone have any ideas?
What com port is your FT232? In the video I go over it but anything higher than 4 wont get detected
@@ModzvilleUSA I ended up getting it to work when plugged into a laptop but doesn't work on my pc. followed it all until I started the cd part and no matter what I tried it kept either doing nothing or it would say something about it could be a sanyo drive? No matter what I tried it would spin the cd so couldn't move past that point. Ended up just putting it back together as couldn't get lower than a 3 and it shouldn't spin CDs
@@renboxtable is it a slim? I was getting that Error on a slim
@@ModzvilleUSA it's a fat, gh-26 board
@@renboxtable what laser is in the unit current and is it set to the write laser when you check the eeprom?
You might need to try another laser
I advise to use proper hexagon and torx screwdrivers on these fragile machines