Question PSX Mod Installer in Brisbane, Australia?

[CMYK]

I've been teaching myself soldering for about 6-8 months now, and usually my projects involve 'nice and chunky' connections on old DMG Game Boys. Apart from some failures early on, this has been mostly successful.

I thought I'd give something smaller a try, and went for an xStation PSX install. Now the PSX boots to a black screen and the xStation shows now signs of life.

I thought I installed everything correctly, but evidently this is beyond my level of expertise.

I'm located in Brisbane, Australia. Are there any modders around that would be willing to take a look at this? I'd obviously pay you, either with a case of beer or cold hard cash, whichever is preferred


(Apologies if this is against the rules or anything, I used the search function but wasn't able to find anything)

 

[Wesk]

I've been teaching myself soldering for about 6-8 months now, and usually my projects involve 'nice and chunky' connections on old DMG Game Boys. Apart from some failures early on, this has been mostly successful.

I thought I'd give something smaller a try, and went for an xStation PSX install. Now the PSX boots to a black screen and the xStation shows now signs of life.

I thought I installed everything correctly, but evidently this is beyond my level of expertise.

I'm located in Brisbane, Australia. Are there any modders around that would be willing to take a look at this? I'd obviously pay you, either with a case of beer or cold hard cash, whichever is preferred


(Apologies if this is against the rules or anything, I used the search function but wasn't able to find anything)

Guys like @Stitches and @Dmcke5 are nearby and might be able to help you out. If you're willing to ship it up to Cairns I can also take a look.

 

[CMYK]

Thanks @Wesk ! Much appreciate the offer.

I would prefer someone local given shipping costs / irregular Auspost performance, but if @Stitches or @Dmcke5 both don't respond I'll certainly take you up on that. Is it OK if I DM you in that case?

 

[Wesk]

Thanks @Wesk ! Much appreciate the offer.

I would prefer someone local given shipping costs / irregular Auspost performance, but if @Stitches or @Dmcke5 both don't respond I'll certainly take you up on that. Is it OK if I DM you in that case?

No worries.

 

[Stitches]

I've been teaching myself soldering for about 6-8 months now, and usually my projects involve 'nice and chunky' connections on old DMG Game Boys. Apart from some failures early on, this has been mostly successful.

I thought I'd give something smaller a try, and went for an xStation PSX install. Now the PSX boots to a black screen and the xStation shows now signs of life.

I thought I installed everything correctly, but evidently this is beyond my level of expertise.

I'm located in Brisbane, Australia. Are there any modders around that would be willing to take a look at this? I'd obviously pay you, either with a case of beer or cold hard cash, whichever is preferred


(Apologies if this is against the rules or anything, I used the search function but wasn't able to find anything)

I'm in the Redlands, just next door of Brisbane to the south-east. I'll gladly take a gander at it if you pay for shipping. I have precision soldering equipment, so assuming nothing's fried, I can get it wired up all nice and pretty like.

Just checking though, you did make sure your motherboard is on the compatible list yes? PU-20s aren't compatible with the xstation

 

[CMYK]

I'm in the Redlands, just next door of Brisbane to the south-east. I'll gladly take a gander at it if you pay for shipping. I have precision soldering equipment, so assuming nothing's fried, I can get it wired up all nice and pretty like.

Just checking though, you did make sure your motherboard is on the compatible list yes? PU-20s aren't compatible with the xstation

Thanks guys, this is the most helpful/friendly forum ever

Yes, it's a PU-18 so compatible.

I'll DM you to sort out details, thank you!

 

[Stitches]

A semi-productive afternoon was had at Grotto La Stitches. We figured out why the system wasn't booting, one of the required disc drive controller legs was disconnected. Fixed that and reflowed the QSB, now the system will boot and the Xstation appears to work correctly.................. BUT, we couldn't get any sound out of the system, and the composite video feed is black and white and cuts out every half a second. Nothing is visually damaged, I reflowed everything I could think of and even tried using one of my Shinobi Scalers to see if VGA out would work. That yielded colour video but still no audio and the video cut out at the same interval as the normal composite feed. I guess because composite is used for c-sync on the scaler that means it's a sync issue? But then the non-functional audio makes me think it's a bigger GPU problem.

We're thouroughly stumped, and I couldn't find any mention online of a PS1's video feed working for half a second then cutting out for half a second then working for half a second. If anyone here has any ideas on what on earth could be wrong with this system, I'm all ears. The system was working properly before the xstation install, and I doubt that the caps all spontaneously died in that small interrim.

 

[Wesk]

Definitely sounds like something is busted with the sync. Did you try pulling the raw C-Sync from the GPU?

 

[Stitches]

We did not. I had difficulty finding any useful pinout or trace map documentation for the PU-18 board, so I didn't really try to jack in upstream. Now I'm remembering that the GPU pinout is mostly universal and I could have used that.

I'm just confused as to how the sync got scuffed from doing the ODE install. You only touch the disc drive controller chip legs and one resistor by an oscilator. Maybe the resistor was needed on that board after all

 

[CMYK]

To add to the confusion, I just plugged the PSX into my CRT and it works beautifully, both PAL and NTSC. Sound is there, no flicker, full colour.

Should have put the VGA port back in!

 

[Stitches]

To add to the confusion, I just plugged the PSX into my CRT and it works beautifully, both PAL and NTSC. Sound is there, no flicker, full colour.

Should have put the VGA port back in!

............................................................ I have no words............................................ I guess all 3 of my TVs are racist against Sony products. Welp, at least it's working as intended now? You can boot games okay?

 

[CMYK]

Haven't tried out a game for longer than 2 minutes, but everything seems to be working, even tested the IGR.

I am both confused and content, which is an odd feeling.

 

[Stitches]

Haven't tried out a game for longer than 2 minutes, but everything seems to be working, even tested the IGR.

I am both confused and content, which is an odd feeling.

Yeah, I said it in response to the PM you just sent but I guess I'll put it here too for other people's reference. It seems the PSX has a little quirk with modern TVs. I've been reading through some support threads about PSX composite and c-sync output not working at all on modern TVs and some retrotinks, like how my big lightning LCD TV just wouldn't display anything. My older Kogan TV and the little Eyoyo TV are older designs and they quite literally half work, so it kinda makes sense that the old ass CRTs work fully. I saw some people mention that modern TVs expect sync data to be consistent and linear so they can buffer entireframes, while CRTs are more lenient and will display what they have as the data is streamed in. The PSX is very old, so it's possible that either: Sony's method of sync processing was perfectly adequate for the video tech of the time and is only now proving troublesome with modern TVs, or the electrolytic capacitors on that board are just old enough that it messes with the modern screens but is still within tolerance for the CRTs.

I'm not entirely sure how scientific the old sync notion is, but considering how every real old console enthusiast will scream at you "Old hardware just looks better on a CRT", I'm inclined to believe there's some unintended wisdom to that statement. The PSX may indeed have a quirk about its output that modern TVs just won't work with, but the CRTs it was designed to display on are totally cool with it. Kinda fits the bill either way.

I'm just glad all it works in the desired environment with all desired functions. I guess I'll take this one as: A win that took a bit long to realise was a win. Ultimately the only real problem was likely that one lifted leg on the CD-ROM controller, and if I wasn't late to the CRT party we would have seen on first test that it was indeed working. Live and learn I guess.

 

[Dmcke5]

Sorry I missed this! I too am in the Redlands but sounds like Stitches got you sorted!