PS3 Black screen in PS2 games on back compat PS3s

[RIP-Felix]

I've been wondering if the RC time constant in transistor is what's shifitng after heating, and that's what allows a console's signals to get through when they were tipping over the edge. Minor variations like that affect impeedance and can cause the apearance of it getting fixed when it's not.

But regardless the fundamental concoction of physical properties the solution isn't heating. It's hinting at the real cause. A bad solder joint, bump defect, bad caps, dying transitors etc. Various things that can affect the console and an imprecise thing like heat can mean whatever you want, or nothing at all.

 

[Timbo9876]

The thing about this console is it continues to surprise us. A lot of what has been discovered with this console was at one time considered unlikely. But here we are today knowing how to extract the Syscon, we can even re-write it! The NEC tokins can be replaced, there was a time we would never had considered these capacitors to be an issue. And actually swapping out any RSX, and your video is simply the best and clearest explanation available, was definitely something that was considered unlikely to be ever achieved.

My point is we can't rule anything out with this console, I think you misunderstood me regarding the EE chip. What i was asking was the one that you took off the working motherboard, was you able to run any tests to confirm it was faulty, or did you take this off just on the off chance it was faulty. When you removed it was there anyway to confirm that it was indeed a dud? The reason I asked this was to be sure that the heat the motherboard was subjected to didn't create a false positive.

I'm guessing time will now tell. If the consoles fail then the heat is simply reviving a component. But it after 3 years the issue doesn't come back, are we then able to consider this could be a motherboard warping issue? And as far as i can tell, slow baking the motherboard is one of the only ways to reduce warping.

So i will report back if it fails, if after 3 years it's still going, I have made a note in my diary to revisit this post.

 

[DeadEnd]

The thing about this console is it continues to surprise us. A lot of what has been discovered with this console was at one time considered unlikely. But here we are today knowing how to extract the Syscon, we can even re-write it! The NEC tokins can be replaced, there was a time we would never had considered these capacitors to be an issue. And actually swapping out any RSX, and your video is simply the best and clearest explanation available, was definitely something that was considered unlikely to be ever achieved.

My point is we can't rule anything out with this console, I think you misunderstood me regarding the EE chip. What i was asking was the one that you took off the working motherboard, was you able to run any tests to confirm it was faulty, or did you take this off just on the off chance it was faulty. When you removed it was there anyway to confirm that it was indeed a dud? The reason I asked this was to be sure that the heat the motherboard was subjected to didn't create a false positive.

I'm guessing time will now tell. If the consoles fail then the heat is simply reviving a component. But it after 3 years the issue doesn't come back, are we then able to consider this could be a motherboard warping issue? And as far as i can tell, slow baking the motherboard is one of the only ways to reduce warping.

So i will report back if it fails, if after 3 years it's still going, I have made a note in my diary to revisit this post.

I did try to reflow the suspected EEGS chip before swapping it. It did not do anything, so I decided to try swapping it because I ran out of options. Yes , it was a shot in the dark. But You can see it's not always about heat. When I removed the faulty one I threw it away and did not do much else with it.

 

[Timbo9876]

I did try to reflow the suspected EEGS chip before swapping it. It did not do anything, so I decided to try swapping it because I ran out of options. Yes , it was a shot in the dark. But You can see it's not always about heat. When I removed the faulty one I threw it away and did not do much else with it.

Okay, so it's highly likely that the EE chip was at fault. Nobody is saying it's all about heat. What i am saying is that heat has caused false positives on this motherboard before, and it's something to keep in mind.

There's nothing wrong with a shot in the dark. It's actually logical to consider that the EE chip is at fault. However, other technicians have replaced this chip, and it's done nothing. Maybe it's like Felix has mentioned that the noPS2 issue could be caused perhaps by many different factors, although it's unlikely we shouldn't rule out board warping as one of them.

I will report back if and when one of my recovered PS2 playback consoles fails.



Sent from my SM-F936B using Tapatalk

 

[DeadEnd]

I get what you're saying and yes, I have mentioned the same thing. Many factors contribute to it. It's more about trial and error in the end.

 

[RIP-Felix]

I pre-baked the motherboard for 3 hours at 120 degrees. When I took readings of the NEC tokins on the RSX side of the board, I got a reading of 0.8 ohms. After the bake I took the same readings which have now increased to 1.3 ohms.

The issue has now been completely resolved. To test this I ran the fan at 80 percent keeping h the console at 45 degrees CPU side and 43 degrees RSX side. PS2 games booted first time with no.issues at all.

Previous to this I piggybacked on some tantalum caps and this had no effect. So I'm guessing the increased ohms from the NEC tokins on the RSX side is reading it from the RSX itself. This console has hardly been used and is no more than 35 days runtime but it seems the RSX may have been starting to fail and the pre-bake has revived it.

See link below

I think you guys have already begun working this out already, but I just want to reiterate caution. Beware of the red herring.

Several factors changed. the tokins replaced will reduce ripple/noise and with tantalizers the ESR/impeedance is lowered. This can help signals pass thst might have had issue before. However, what roles the RSX plays in PS2 HW process is still poorly understood (at least by me). So IDK if this could even have an effect on the PS2 side of things. If the RSX core is decoupled enough for xmb and ps3 to run fine, then I don't see why ps2 wouldnt.

You baked the board. This changes impeedance for every capacitor on the board due to the curie point healing effect. If there is a capacitor "somewhere" on the board that effects PS2, then this could cause it to apear to work, temporarily (no telling how long). The same is true of YLOD and we're all familiar with thermomechanical reconnections by now. That"s a different process from the curie point healing effect tho. So that's 2 potential modalities where heat can change results.

So what we have here are many varibles that could have influenced the outcome. We also have a huge list of components that could have been affected by the rework performed. What this means is there's no way to draw a causal relationship between any one thing done and the outcome observed. The experiment failed to control for interfering varibles and isolate the one you wanted to evaluate. I'm not sure it would be possable with this type of issue, since replacing the eegs requires heat that also affects all the caps in the area, BGA of nearby packages, and only time will tell if the curie point healing effect wasnt the reason when it continues working after a few months.

My point is, let's refrain fro drawing any conclusions about what "fixed" it. And let's wait to see if it's truely fixed first before we even assume it is.

 

[DoublesAdvocate]

I went back to test my Sony 40nm CECHA once again and it seems to still have the noPS2 issue, although like I mentioned before it appears to be different from most other noPS2 cases I've heard of where the console just gives a black screen and either locks up or allows the use of the menu. Mine usually allows me to get in-game and play for a few minutes before freezing (though again I still have the ability to quit to the XMB). I checked my syscon log and it seems like this console has had a number of issues I think are RSX related.

01: A0901001  Tue Jan 13 07:42:42 2026
02: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:32 2021
03: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:31 2021
04: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:30 2021
05: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:29 2021
06: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:28 2021
07: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:27 2021
08: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:27 2021
09: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:26 2021
10: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:25 2021
11: A0802120  Fri Feb 26 11:17:24 2021
12: A0801001  Fri Feb 26 11:17:23 2021
13: A0801701  Thu Jul 30 05:38:13 2020
14: A08014FF  Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
15: A0801701  Thu Jul 30 05:26:39 2020
16: A0801001  Thu Jan  4 07:27:31 2018
17: A0801004  Mon Oct 23 01:49:14 2017
18: A0801004  Mon Oct  9 09:28:42 2017
19: A0801004  Wed May  6 03:24:05 2015
20: A08014FF  Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
21: A0801701  Sun Nov  2 10:13:11 2014
22: A08014FF  Fri Dec 31 23:59:59 1999
23: A0801701  Sun Nov  2 10:11:48 2014
24: A08014FF  Sun Nov  2 10:10:47 2014
25: A0801701  Sun Nov  2 10:10:47 2014
26: A0801004  Wed Aug 13 11:10:46 2014
27: A0801004  Tue Aug 12 04:42:31 2014
28: A0801004  Tue Aug 12 00:34:33 2014
29: A0801004  Sun Aug 10 05:58:40 2014
30: A0801701  Thu Jun  5 03:38:20 2014
31: A0801701  Thu Jun  5 03:34:08 2014
32: FFFFFFFF  Sat Feb  1 08:22:14 2014