Alright, I've gone and fscked up my very reliable hard-modded fatty PS2. The fan was coming on but no video or audio with several different cables, so I tried to "fix" it. Oh, I fixed it good, all right. While reseating the EZI clips, I knocked a surface-mount component off the motherboard near the BIOS chip, and another off the DMS4 DSP clip itself. I tacked them back on but I'm thinking it was an epic fail because now when I poke the console's "on" button I get about 1 second of green light, then it goes back to red. The DMS4 LED panel doesn't even light up. Fsking moron, that's me.
I'd like to chuck it in the rubbish bin and start over. But I've been out of the scene for a couple of years so I'm 100% unsure of the best route.
A week ago I could download a disc image off the Usenet, or grab a game from Blockbuster, boot up my BartPE with WinHIIP and suck the game to the PS/2's hard disk in a matter of minutes. 9 times out of 10 they'd play beautifully, and the ones that wouldn't, I could almost always find a workaround (usually by avoiding cutscenes). I couldn't use the console's internal DVD reader because it's been dead for 3-4 years but with BartPE and a USB>IDE adapter I was a game-ripping fanatic. I still have many dozens of games on my PS/2 disk and a backup disk. No burnt games -- everythings on the drives.
Can I get a new slim PS/2 at Gamestop and get back to where I was last week? What will it take? Can I salvage my disk-based library?
Or....does anyone around here have a history of fixing surface-mount fsck-ups like the monstrosity I've perpetuated this evening?
Seems to me that if I'm digging the fast HDD access, I better not move to a slimline. Unless I can find someone to put a v12 or v13 into an HD-Combo for me.
So I'm going to retry my solder job, don't have a proper SM kit but I'll give it my damndest. I'm pretty sure can't end up worse off than I am now.
If I really fsck it up I can always get a parts-hog 50001 off eBay and swap the motherboard. Then do I go ModBo with USBLoader...? I'm so lost...
