Mod / Hardware Thread

[Anonymous No.9756071]

Awww fuck time to blow some shit up today. Installing xStation.

Let's have a mod / hardware thread. What have you done / had done to your consoles? Was it a good result?

[Anonymous No.9756082]

>>9756071
I threw a spare fenrir I had into a saturn last night.

[Anonymous No.9756083]

>>9756071

I didn't have the balls or the patience to do this one myself, paid an EE friend to do it for me. Good luck to you sir. Most recent thing I did was install a Darksoft CPS2 multikit

[Anonymous No.9756094]

>>9756083
> I didn't have the balls or the patience to do this one myself
this is a little beyond my paygrade, i did a expansion chip sound mod and a composite video mod on my NES toploader to practice for this, both of which were much easier. we'll see how it goes... i'll keep you guys updated

[Anonymous No.9756097]

>>9756082
People just get the AliExpress ones right? I know the official ones can be hard to get if they make a difference.

[Anonymous No.9756102]

>>9756097
Haven't seen any aliexpress clones of fenrir, I bought this from ced's website some time last year.

[Anonymous No.9756108]

>>9756102
Oh I was thinking of gdemu

[afatoldman No.9756146]

Anyone know where I can find a GC Loader PNP at a reasonable price? The Black Dog site is sold out and the only one on eBay is $500.

Gonna buy a Swiss on a Memory Card + SD2SP2 otherwise.

[Anonymous No.9756192]

>>9756146
ummm an sd card with a wii will be good anon

[afatoldman No.9756196]

>>9756192
I don't have a Wii. Looks like they are pretty cheap on eBay though...

[Anonymous No.9756202]

>>9756071
pins are up, step 1 complete. i used a fine soldering tip and guitar string to pry each one up initially, and a jewelery flathead and a razor blade to pry them the rest of the way up. didn't burn down the house yet.

[Anonymous No.9756225]

>>9756202
aaaand i forgot one lol. all good now

[Anonymous No.9756280]

>>9756146
i'm 99% sure that new picoboot method is about to open up a new method of romloading without the need for the GC Loader, look into it. Im giving up on the gamecube for the time being.

[Anonymous No.9756291]

>>9756225
scratched some holes, board is ready to go on

[Anonymous No.9756414]

>>9756291
i have never soldered anything that small in my life jesus fuck. it's on ...hopefully

[Anonymous No.9756426]

>>9756071
>Xstation
That reminds me, I’ve been wanting to make some sort of PS1 ODE for a while ever since I found out that my console wasn’t compatible with it (and I’m a turd worlder so just buying a PSIO isn’t an option either). The issue is that I don’t know much about electronics and my programming skills are rudimentary. Where would you recommend me to start with console modding?

[Anonymous No.9756513]

>>9756426
>I’ve been wanting to make some sort of PS1 ODE
bruh that's not something you can just "make" lol. the later models aren't supported because xStation hijacks the signals between chips and emulates the responses they are supposed to receive, very specific control signals mind you that request and confirm data transmission between the processor and CDROM. if xStation doesn't work on your model, it's probably not for lack of trying.
but i mean, have some specs:
https://problemkaputt.de/psx-spx.htm

[Anonymous No.9756523]

>>9756513
Yeah, I know I am very optimistic. And I see why there would be small details making implementations of things change a lot. After all, the closest I’ve gotten to modifying hardware has been pretty much installing FreeMCBoot on a slim PS2 which I still play games off disks because I am too lazy to attempt setting up SMB if I even can because my ISP router is completely locked down.

And thanks for the specs.

[Anonymous No.9756527]

>>9756414
pried up a resistie-boi, soldered a wire, all right, time to put this shit back together

[Anonymous No.9756545]

>>9756523
SMB was a pain to set up, but i have it running with OPL on an old XP box and a USB ethernet dongle and it works flawlessly. popstarter is a piece of shit though for PS1 games which is why i'm installing xStation in the first place, which brings us to now...

[Anonymous No.9756564]

>>9756071
I noped the fuck out on these mods when they say to cut traces/bend processor pins. I don't do any mods I can't reverse fairly simply/easily.
I pray for some savant to make a proper ODE that just werks. The ramapcsx2 announcement on twatter for development on something like that was a good enough dose of hopium for me

[Anonymous No.9756648]

>>9756564
yeah it kind of sucks to destroy disc capability with this mod, but in this case i bought a PS1 (SCPH-5501) specifically for this and i already have both a spare PS1 and a PS2 hooked up if i want to use discs.

[Anonymous No.9756684]

>>9756082
Oh thank god I thought I was the only one who had to do a weirdo bend on the 21-pin cable.

>>9756083
A lot of people who can solder definitely aren't comfortable doing pin lifting for the X-Station. You could of course clip the pins off entirely but people get mad when you do.

>>9756146
They've fucked from the shortages. If you want one add yourself to the email list and wait for it to come back in-stock.

>>9756280
It already does romloading, only issue is it's ever so slightly slower than the disc drive/gc loader so you'll have occasional issues in games that constantly stream data. Not as awful as reading off an SD gecko, but it can happen and once you notice it happening you'll never be able to stop seeing it.

[Anonymous No.9756686]

>>9756527
all right, ...it's in, waiting for my new SD card to format and we'll see if i actually pulled it off.
as a side note the fact that 512 GB MicroSD cards exist and are less than a hundred dollars is too much for my boomer ass mind to comprehend...

[Anonymous No.9756694]

>>9756686
You should look into getting a 3D printed cover/mount, it's a fucking chore if you ever drop the microsd card.

[Anonymous No.9756715]

>>9756694
i didn't bother because i don't really care about the aesthetics but
>it's a fucking chore if you ever drop the microsd card
...i didn't think of that, might be worth getting

[Anonymous No.9756746]

>>9756684
>It already does romloading, only issue is it's ever so slightly slower than the disc drive/gc loader so you'll have occasional issues in games that constantly stream data. Not as awful as reading off an SD gecko, but it can happen and once you notice it happening you'll never be able to stop seeing it.
I only can find the pico boot mod, which is just loading games from the MC slot or the bottom slot
Besides what happened to the flashcarts made with r pico for n64 and other consoles
Those would help against the ukri jew monopoly

[Anonymous No.9756835]

>>9756715
Don't get one of those they make it overheat, the ribbon cable can also fuck up the SD slot. How many times do you see yourself needing to remove a 512MB SD.

[Anonymous No.9756842]

>>9756835
>512MB
Meant GB

[Anonymous No.9756883]

>>9756835
>they make it overheat
That is inherent to the X-Station itself, and it doesn't actually overheat it just gets slightly warmer. The same thing occurs with most other ODEs because there's no longer a spinning disc to help circulate airflow inside the console, and only the GDemu poses any danger to the console due to this. Everything has already been documented and there's no threat coming from this, at worse your PSU will need to be recapped if you haven't already replaced the 20+ year old capacitors on it.
If you're really that concerned by a 0.025W increase in heat dissipation then you can have the PS1 on its side so heat flows out of the side vent.

[Anonymous No.9756894]

Electronics

[Anonymous No.9756914]

>>9756883
If he's really worried, he can install a water cooled ramen unit

[Anonymous No.9756923]

>>9756083
It was my first "real" mod and I did it no problem. The tricky part is lifting the pins but if you go slow and watch a few guides on it it's a piece of cake. The QSB made it easy peasy and the few straggler wires you needed to solder weren't too bad.
It's a fun project, the hard part is sourcing the correct console revision.

[Anonymous No.9756983]

I made some component cables for my xbox, used the xbox 360 original cables to make them
I have noticed some vertical line bars while playing games on my crt and lcd screen. But when I use 480p mode the bars are gone
What is going on?

[Anonymous No.9757145]

>>9756686
well, nothing blew up, so that's good, but, it's not working yet either. activity light just blinks twice, and it goes to the memory card / CD player screen. xstation did write a blank config.txt file to my SD card, so that's a good sign.
i'm gonna check and reflow my solder points and hope for the best. from what i read, that's probably the issue. it wouldn't surprise me if one of those didn't quite make good enough contact.

[Anonymous No.9757159]

>>9756527
fix your shit here, looks like you might be bridging

[Anonymous No.9757162]

>>9757145
Looks like the lid sensor isn't pressed.

[Anonymous No.9757167]

I watch youtube videos of people modding consoles while playing on my stock GBA. It's entertaining to watch but I don't want to do it myself.

[Anonymous No.9757172]

>>9757159
the wire well clear of that other pad in the air, that pic does look like that though fair enough
>>9757162
should be down i'll make for damn sure it's down this time

[Anonymous No.9757208]

>>9757172
If you have a multimeter you can use these pinouts, to check if your QSB is soldered correctly

[Anonymous No.9757319]

>>9756071
Be careful. I installed a Xstation a while back (last autumn) and I was in a bit of a rush and didn't pay enough attention so I lifted pins from the wrong chip and fucked everything up. I had to get another psx but thankfully they're dirt cheap. I'm considering turning the broken one into a clock.

[Anonymous No.9757352]

>>9756983
>What is going on?
A tard made a shitty cable and then asked what was wrong with it. Being a tard he provided no useful details or pics to help diagnose. Everyone ignored him until one based dude mocked him for being an assclown.

[Anonymous No.9757354]

>>9757208
word
>>9757145
we're gonna make it boys

[Anonymous No.9757359]

>>9757352
Jailbars is a very common problem in some old consoles, you don't need pics for that

[Anonymous No.9757413]

>>9757352
>shitty cable
If the cable were the problem the bars would show up in 480p mode too, retard

[Anonymous No.9757417]

>>9757354
welp, pin 7 right here wudn' ah ringin' or ah dingin. ironed him right up and he is now currently a happy flowie boi.

[Anonymous No.9757523]

>>9757417
>balling solder
I hope you're using flux my man
also taking the caps off the multimeter prongs helps getting contact

[Anonymous No.9757529]

>>9757523
>cockblocking glorious gore with simple common sense advice
What were they thinking?

[Anonymous No.9757554]

>>9757417
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!! WE FUCKIN DID IT!!!!!!
damn, just as i was about to give up, turns out the connection on one of the contacts i had to scratch was still a bit flaky. >>9756291
well i guess i'm staying up a bit more and playing some goddamn video games. that was a fun day lol
this mod was well beyond my experience, skill level and paygrade but somehow we soldiered though it. godspeed and godbless.
also post some good PS1 romhacks and translations. in the meantime i'm about to rock some Gradius Gaiden...

[Anonymous No.9757659]

>>9757554
Good job, anon, I'm proud of you :). I installed one of these a couple months ago and had the same issue with not scraping enough of the solder mask from the vias.

[Anonymous No.9757705]

>>9757554
based

[Anonymous No.9757990]

>>9757554
Good job anon. Have fun. Just check CDRomance for translated games and maybe some hacks.

[Anonymous No.9758320]

>>9756071
Wasn't the dev making some new ODE using a pico compatible with every revision?
I have a SCPH-7502, SCPH-9002 and PSOne and I really wish I could stick an ODE in one of them.

[Anonymous No.9758350]

>>9756196
You can probably buy an sd card that someone has already loaded whatever from the wii. I know people sell ps2 memory cards with freeboot pre installed.

[Anonymous No.9758772]

>>9757554
How does everyone on this board have this style of tv? They’re very hard to find in my area.

[Anonymous No.9758865]

>>9758772
i got extremely fuckin lucky ...exactly 2 years ago tomorrow heh

[Anonymous No.9758887]

>>9758865
Congrats on the wheelbarrow, bruv

[Anonymous No.9760134]

>>9756071
I did this to my PS2: A fan mod, a SATA Network adapter mod and a RePS2 PSU mod. I plan on doin USB-C to barrel jack or USB-C to my other consoles so I don't have so many bricks and power cords to look for.

[Anonymous No.9760281]

>>9760134
ah man, modern power supply mods run so much cooler and take up much less energy, that's a tempting future project.
> so many bricks and power cords to look for.
...i guess you could call this "solved" hahah, the cabinet doesn't get hot, and just one flick of that yellow power strip and they all go poof, which is kinda nice

[Anonymous No.9762368]

>>9760134
It is possible to replace the ps2 USB 1.0 for an USB 2.0? Games run like shit with usb 1.0

[Anonymous No.9762371]

>>9762368
Why not upgrade it to USB 3? And make it Blu-ray compatible while your at it

[Anonymous No.9762380]

>>9758320
Some tranny was working on loading PS games from usb on ps2 slims without using popstarter
Of course the tranny never released any documentation and just posted a video

[Anonymous No.9762382]

>>9762371
I know it's pointless (ethernet and internal hdd) but I wonder if it's possible

[Anonymous No.9762390]

>>9762382
Internal hdd is possible for some slims
But I have never seen a proper guide for it. Saw one in russian

[Anonymous No.9762409]

Currently waiting for my Wii HDMI mod to get to me since it just shipped out. Other than that I ordered an OG 3ds so I can mod it, then its just a matter of waiting for Gamebox to release their 3ds consolizer kit later on in the year.

[Anonymous No.9762417]

>>9762380
i've looked into this a bit... the main problem is the PS1 backwards compatibility part of the system also controls the I/O: controllers, memory cards, disc drive, USB, Ethernet, coordination between chips, etc, so having the PS1 part of the PS2 running PS1 games is either impossible or extremely difficult.
the big ol' PS2s actually had some of the PS1 chipset, but the slims already emulate PS1 it to some degree...

[Anonymous No.9762423]

>>9762417
The problem here is this faggots never share the method they use to hack this
Is like the pico mod chip for switch, the original modder got scared because some glowniggers called him out and never delivered the sauce. Luckily other modders saw that using a pico device was viable and started working on it

[Anonymous No.9762424]

>>9762371
>>9762390
> USB
> HDD
Take the ethernet pill. once you get past setting up the ultimate janky pain in the ass that is Windows Networking with SMB it works incredibly well. i have my PS2 ethernet linked to an ancient XP box with OPL manager running on it.

[Anonymous No.9762434]

>>9762424
>Windows Networking with SMB
You can just play right off of the router. You don't need a computer turn on.

[Anonymous No.9762449]

>>9762434
> router
yes you can do it through a router, but you still need Windows Networking / SMB configured on the machine you're sharing from
> You don't need a computer turn on.
uh, the one with the files on it? yes you absolutely do lol

[Anonymous No.9762459]

>>9762449
>uh, the one with the files on it? yes you absolutely do lol
If your router has an USB port you can plug a pendrive with the files you need. OPL can get into the files of the pendrive.

[Anonymous No.9762463]

>>9762459
ah, i see, if that actually works that's an awesome solution

[Anonymous No.9762470]

>>9762463
Yeah it's great because you don't need your PC turn on. Here's a tutorial of how to do it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkavy7-7m9s

Every router has a different menu so you have to figure it out how to do it.

[Anonymous No.9763935]

Solder newbie with a sad story

After finding soldering easy on a practice board a single time, I accidentally ruined my copy of Warioware Twisted. I've been waiting years to play this but wanted to fix the force feedback by swapping to a different vibrating component that youtube told me would work just as well.

I accidentally tinned my solder tip with too much solder, launching a chunk of solder to this chip which has something to do with the gyroscope. I had my iron set to too high a temp so I accidentally lost half of the legs of the chip when I tried to wick the extra solder away and now my copy of this game doesn't gyro and therefore can't vibrate either.

Whoops. It costs like 100 bucks now too

[Anonymous No.9763942]

>>9763935
>I had my iron set to too high a temp so I accidentally lost half of the legs of the chip when I tried to wick the extra solder away
Holy dog shit. Good lord. Don't ever touch any retro computer anything with your soldering skills. Ever.

[Anonymous No.9763945]

>>9762417
Wait you cant play ps1 games from the hard drive? Only ps2?

[Anonymous No.9763992]

>>9763942
You can't stop me, I will keep trying to get better and I don't care what gets destroyed in the process

[Anonymous No.9764008]

>>9763935
>I fucked up every single thing every step of the way.

I hope your post is some larp fantasy. Otherwise invest in a $5 copper desoldering braid or a bulb suction tool to remove excess solder. Get a lighted magnifying lens for close up work if you don't have one already.

I'd better understand messing up SMT components 1/5th the size of the part you circled.

[Anonymous No.9764023]

>>9764008
I have a desoldering braid. I don't have a lit magnifying glass. My iron was simply set way too high, I'll never do that again.

Like I said this was my first actual soldering project. I did some practice board project before this. I will keep working to get better, no one on 4chan has the power to stop me

[Anonymous No.9764031]

>>9764023
I have a Hakko 888D that I've never changed from the default of 750F. No issues either. You need more practice. And always remember, desoldering is harder than soldering.

[Anonymous No.9764315]

Had to replace ram U10 on my Commodore 64, I think I'll have to replace the PLA too because the one I replaced the original with is not very compatible with fast loaders.
I also have a lumafix on it

[Anonymous No.9765305]

>>9763945
> Wait you cant play ps1 games from the hard drive (on a) ps2?
...well you can, sort of, but not natively. there is an official(ish) PS1 emulator called POPStarter that runs on PS2, it came bundled with some japanese only release, and it was hacked to work with ...most PS1 games. compatibility is not 100%, and even if the game runs, there are visual glitches, lag, and it's not a great experience for many titles.
but at the end of the day, you're still using an emulator, even if its an official one on official sony hardware, so at that point why not just use fucking duckstation?

[Anonymous No.9765309]

harvested some gamecube sticks from wii nunchucks

[Anonymous No.9765323]

Well it finally happened to me: I've been chinked.

>want to mod og Xbox with new bigger SSD
>buy 80 wire cable and IDE to SATA adapter on Aliexpress
>3 weeks later both arrive
>cable seller sent me a black Asus cable that's too short and on which the pin connectors are reversed compared to original Xbox one
>basically impossible to connect both the DVD drive and HDD correctly
>attached a message saying "sorry this is what we had"
>motherfucker
Two weeks later
>decide to try and clone the HDD anyway
>connect everything with the cable and the IDE adapter
>IDE adapter flashes red ONCE and dies straight away
>motherfucker
Some time later that day
>spend another 35 dollars buying the Startech adapter and an IDE cable from Amazon

Suffice to say I lost money and still haven't been able to clone the HDD.

[Anonymous No.9765358]

>>9765323
Don't forget that IDE cable needs to be really long, 24". This is a good one.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003IDF0JC/

[Anonymous No.9765491]

>>9764008
>>9763942
I have one of those pinecil solder pens and was wonder what solder would be good to practice with on a practice board? I would like to be able to eventual fix capacitors and such on consoles.

[Anonymous No.9765740]

>>9765491
people say solder with lead in it is easier to control but fuck lead i never get that one

[Anonymous No.9765884]

I cleaned my Saturn’s 3D game pad (ufo) controller.

Literally just took it apart, cleaned the plastic and rubber, and put it back together. It’s my original controller from 20+ years ago. Works great.

Also cleaned my SNES high frequency controller for fun but I don’t have a SNES anymore so this will get an adapter to usb for emulation.

And I found my Sega Genesis model 2 and Sega CD model 2 (attached to it) in the original blue Sega CD box. I don’t have a RF CRT right now so that’s the next acquisition cuz the box only has the RF video cable in it.

Cleaning your controllers is good for your soul.

[Anonymous No.9766948]

>>9765884
i would get a composite cable, aftermarket ones are like 10 bucks
speaking of which, i'm planning an S-video mod on my model 2 soon, as soon as i get a day to do it