First of all, I have a modded slim v12 ps2 (swap magic with sensor cover chips). I have been using it with swap magic for 2+ years, working great.
Last summer it began to have errors.
When I put an original game in my ps2 slim, it reads the game just fine, if sometimes a tiny bit slow, but nothing out of the ordinary, except the occasional read error on GTA San Andreas.
When I put swap magic in, it will load like 10% of the time and even then it may take a LONG time to load, something like an hour.
Then I put my backup game in, which used to play just fine on the machine, and now it goes to a black screen. I can tell it is trying to load the game, because if I come back an hour later or something it shows a frozen title screen. I got it to work intermittently on one game, but then it began to have severe loading problems between stages, i.e. it could take 15 minutes to a 1/2 hour to load the next stage.
Anyway, do you think replacing the laser will fix this?
I've searched all over the net and haven't found any problem like this. Either machines load or they don't. I've never seen it working just sometimes like mine. I don't want to risk the laser replacement if it's the processor or something. Alternately, is there a way to clean way down inside the laser unit without damaging it?
My sticker is intact, I would send to sony but I'm WAY past warranty and I really don't want to send them my modded console.