Hello,
I'm hoping someone can help me out with this issue I'm having with a modded PS1. I have a 5501 PS1 that I bought brand new back in the day. Had it mod chipped around the same time I purchased it and it played games just fine. It's been in storage for a long time and haven't messed around with it in years, so I decided to get it back out to play some games. It was working fine just like it always had. I was getting into the softmods that have been out recently, messing around with tonyhax and freepsxboot.
First issue I noticed was with Spyro 3. So I didn't know about all the copy protection on it, so apparently my mod chip is so old that it doesn't defeat the copy protection. I used a tonyhax boot CD and then swapped the Spyro. This method let me get past the start screen and seemed to be playable. No issues so far. however the cut scenes and audio seemed to be laggy. Another backup game also had this issue with laggy audio and choppy FMV's. I figured bad burn, so I made another, same issues. I tried on an emulator on my PC booting from the disc and no lag. I started thinking maybe the laser is starting to fail, So I messed with the trim pot. This improved the audio and FMV issues but did not eliminate it. Now retail games had no issues at all with sound or FMV.
So today I went to play Grand Turismo retail and I got the Memory Card/CD menu. This happened on Megaman also... I was like I just played these yesterday and they worked fine. I tried several reboots and nothing. Now it is to the point where I consistently get "Please insert Playstation CD ROM" screen. The weird thing is I can put a backup in and it boots just fine. Only retail CD's are not booting. So I'm thinking laser is failing and can't read the CD's for some reason. So I messed with the trim pot again no amount of adjusting will make retail games boot. Backups still play fine however. So I thought about loading up the Tonyhax boot disc and swapping it out with a retail game to see what would happen. Well, it boots the retail game just fine! I tried freepsxboot also, and retail boots as well.
So I read somewhere that it could be a conflict or failure with the modchip not allowing retail games to boot. I don't know how or why this would happen all of a sudden. I haven't looked if anything happened to the mod chip, bad wire connection or something like that. Haven't had time to open it up to really investigate. I think the chip is a very early MM3 if that makes any difference.
Should I leave it alone or remove the chip? I have freepsxboot installed to memcard, and can still load backups. Just the retail needs loaded through the exploit methods. Kind of annoying because I know something isn't right. Any suggestions?? I'm still not ruling out eventual laser replacement, but it seems to be working for now. Anyone ever heard of backups loading but not retail? I appreciate any help you guys can give me.
I'm hoping someone can help me out with this issue I'm having with a modded PS1. I have a 5501 PS1 that I bought brand new back in the day. Had it mod chipped around the same time I purchased it and it played games just fine. It's been in storage for a long time and haven't messed around with it in years, so I decided to get it back out to play some games. It was working fine just like it always had. I was getting into the softmods that have been out recently, messing around with tonyhax and freepsxboot.
First issue I noticed was with Spyro 3. So I didn't know about all the copy protection on it, so apparently my mod chip is so old that it doesn't defeat the copy protection. I used a tonyhax boot CD and then swapped the Spyro. This method let me get past the start screen and seemed to be playable. No issues so far. however the cut scenes and audio seemed to be laggy. Another backup game also had this issue with laggy audio and choppy FMV's. I figured bad burn, so I made another, same issues. I tried on an emulator on my PC booting from the disc and no lag. I started thinking maybe the laser is starting to fail, So I messed with the trim pot. This improved the audio and FMV issues but did not eliminate it. Now retail games had no issues at all with sound or FMV.
So today I went to play Grand Turismo retail and I got the Memory Card/CD menu. This happened on Megaman also... I was like I just played these yesterday and they worked fine. I tried several reboots and nothing. Now it is to the point where I consistently get "Please insert Playstation CD ROM" screen. The weird thing is I can put a backup in and it boots just fine. Only retail CD's are not booting. So I'm thinking laser is failing and can't read the CD's for some reason. So I messed with the trim pot again no amount of adjusting will make retail games boot. Backups still play fine however. So I thought about loading up the Tonyhax boot disc and swapping it out with a retail game to see what would happen. Well, it boots the retail game just fine! I tried freepsxboot also, and retail boots as well.
So I read somewhere that it could be a conflict or failure with the modchip not allowing retail games to boot. I don't know how or why this would happen all of a sudden. I haven't looked if anything happened to the mod chip, bad wire connection or something like that. Haven't had time to open it up to really investigate. I think the chip is a very early MM3 if that makes any difference.
Should I leave it alone or remove the chip? I have freepsxboot installed to memcard, and can still load backups. Just the retail needs loaded through the exploit methods. Kind of annoying because I know something isn't right. Any suggestions?? I'm still not ruling out eventual laser replacement, but it seems to be working for now. Anyone ever heard of backups loading but not retail? I appreciate any help you guys can give me.