Found a PS2 at a garage sale for $8... let the restoration begin

Last Saturday I was driving through an older neighborhood in Phoenix and saw a garage sale sign for a street I normally don't turn on. Decided to check it out and there it was... a fat PS2 sitting on a folding table covered in dust with a stack of games. The guy said he found it in his attic and it hadn't been turned on in maybe 8 years. I offered $8 and he took it without even haggling. Got it home, blew out the fan with compressed air, and opened it up to find the disc drive belt had turned into goo. Cleaned that out with some rubbing alcohol and ordered a replacement belt off eBay for like $4. Still waiting on the delivery but I'm crossing my fingers the laser works. Has anyone else had luck fixing one of these older slim models or am I better off just swapping the whole drive unit?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_wesley5d ago

and that's exactly how it goes with old tech man, once you pull on that thread you find the real problem underneath. the belt turning to goo is just the start, its always the start. i've fixed like 4 of those fat ps2s and the lasers are usually fine even if they look dirty. the real killer is the spindle motor seizing up or the mainboard caps bulging out. you might want to check if the laser sled moves freely before that belt shows up, saved me a headache doing that ahead of time. honestly its the same thing with any gadget from that era, the rubber dries out and the plastic gets brittle but the electronics stay solid. you just gotta remember these things were built to survive a nuclear blast compared to what we get now.

lunar895d ago

lol yeah but nobody talks about how the thermal paste under the heatsinks turns to literal dust and stops conducting heat too.

ramirez.vera4d ago

Turns to DUST? Okay that's wild lmao.