Fix your broken Playstation!!! Heres how...

I know this works with the original playstation (SCPH1000 - SCPH9001 and all models inbetween). This probably will not work with a playstation one... The problem is that the lasers wear out over time, especially the older playstations. which meens increased loading times lockups due to read errors and sometimes it just refuses to load games unless its upside down... You have to increase the power to the laser and here is how...
Warning do this at your own risk you can KILL your playstation if you are not careful... I have done it to five playstations without incident but my friend tried it and killed his psx in short order (cause he didnt know what he was doing).....

step1 openerup
-there are 6 phillips screws on the bottom remove em all

step2 remover the cover
-the top of the psx should easily come off

step3 remove the laser mechanism
NOTE the cable orientation....
-can look challenging but its really easy
-simply gently pull the ribbon cable from the board along with the other cable its or 4 wires (both coming from the black laser mechanism)
-the laser mechanism should come off easily (it isn't held down by anything) just pull straight up...

step4 Adjust the laser
NOTE do not touch the laser you could mess it up and that would be bad...
-with the laser mechanism in your hand follow the ribbon cable up to where it meets the plastic you, should see a small (its tiny) potentometer(sp?) in the middle of the ribbon cable.
-with a precition screwdriver (slotted) turn the pot 1/16th of a turn clockwise, just enough to make it move we arent trying to turn this more than a 1/3 milimeter (this is where my friend messed up he turned it a full turn even after he heard it break...)

now put her back together and put in a game to test if it worked... (preferably a disk that isnt messed up or scratched) if the game still skips/wont load try turning the pot another 1/16th of a turn, i wouldnt advise doing it more than three times cause then you are asking for trouble... all and all its a pretty painless procedure... and the results are worth the risk you can actually play games again...

Dude thankx for this, i've had my playstation sitting in a drawer gathering dust for the last 2 years cause it slowly stopped playing any games at all. As i'm to cheap to buy a ps2 and cause i hate my n64, i've been gamesless for a long time. I just did this, put in tekken and it loaded right up. Woot i can finally play games again.

well thanks for the write up and the info and time it took you to write it up, but i dont play ps any more, i dont even play ps2 anymore, really only games for computer, but it is anyways good to know. yeah my ps was having trouble reading disks as it got older but it is not like i play anymore so it doesn't bother me that much and not worth the affort

good job on the instructions because the hardest part when i fixed my ps2 was knowing where to go when i got in

I will DEFINITELY be filing this info into my memory banks! Thanks a truck load!

Running it upside down works sometimes too, just put the disk in, turn it on, then lay it upside down.... if you don't feel like opening it up.

Hmm, I might do this to my friend's PSX, it has the same problem with not loading.

what exactly does it do when u adjust the potentometer?

um...cranks up the voltage of the laser. thats the whole problem, over time the laser gets to weak to read the data anymore, solution make the laser stronger.

lol i beat we would laser or eyes out if thats on full blast lol any ways so is it the stronger the voltage the faster it reads or thats not true?

If you notice... on the old PSXs, the power supply is closer to the laser assembly than on the later models, the heat would cause the laser to not work as well as it wore down some of the metal parts in the assembly.

Can you get like step by step pictures up, it would enhance the article very much.

so your kind of "overclocking" the laser. nice

dont forget to crank that FSB

I saw a description of the process on a website once, and even though I had a perfectly good, and working 7501, I decided to have some fun anyway. I cranked it up some more, and got it to read CD-RWs. Too bad it then stopped reading CDRs . Guess it was a one or the other situation.

Then, I got bored, and Opened up my DVD player, started fiddling with the pot on it. Got my ancient 2nd gen DVD player, that only played DVDs, to play DVDs and RWs. Too bad that increased voltage burned out my dvd laser after a year or 2.

ill try to get pictures up soon... i have modded the crap outta my psx: modchip, laser mod, and a homemade psx to pc controller adapter that piggybacks off of the controller ports...

u have an XP21000+ ??

lol, 21000+

I should post pics of my psx, it's clear

oops forgot to add a few more zeros hehe j/k actually someone pointed this out to me a few months ago im just too lazy to fix it...