Burned PS1 Games Audio Stutter

[o2s360]

Hello all. First of all, I apologize if this has been posted on the forums. Here goes:

I have 2 models of the original gray PlayStation, an SCPH-9001 and an SCPH-7501. I have 2 portable USB burners, one is a Samsung (supported burn speeds 10x, 16x, 20x and 24x) while the other one has no brand name on it (supported burn speeds 4x, 6x and 10x) and I forgot what the brand was. I use PS-X Change 2 to play backups. I have absolutely no issues playing backups on the SCPH-9001. Unfortunately I can't say the same about the SCPH-7501. When playing backups burned at 4x speed, the FMV's as well as character speeches in games like Resident Evil 2 seems to skip and the guy is just moving his hands in the air until the sentence is finished after the audio cuts off and is then the audio is restored again after the sentence is finished and so on. It's a never ending cycle and it's annoying the hell out of me. (I repeat once again, this issue does not exist on my SCPH-9001. Only the SCPH-7501). The audio seems to be working perfectly fine when I use my original Resident Evil 2 disc despite the fact that it's badly scratched up (which leads me to believe that it is probably, and most likely, a burn speed issue). In Smackdown! 2, the music fades in and out for a brief millisecond during a match on the SCPH-7501 whereas it's, once again, perfect on the SCPH-9001.

I am absolutely clueless as to what the issue could be. Any help is greatly appreciated on the matter. Thanks!

[Warrior]

What brand of burnable media are you using?

That is most likely the case and possibly a dirty/dying lens.

I bet Zorlon has more info regarding it though.

[o2s360]

I'm using Verbatim CD-R 52x. I also tried cleaning the lens by VERY lightly brushing it with the cleaning cloth that comes with a pair of glasses. Perhaps that made it a bit better idk. I did however notice that there definitely was a difference with the stutters at different burn speeds with the two different burners. With 10x, the lowest speed on the Samsung burner and it was near perfect, but the game speed was a bit slower at certain scenes.

[Warrior]

Ya you only want to use specialized optical lens cleaners, its those CDs that have a fine brush attached to the bottom of the CD.

My PSX is in severe need of replacement parts so I can't give much advice except burn at the absolute minimum speed to get the best results.

And only use Redumped PSX images since they are the absolute best dumps of the original media.

[Zorlon]

The possibility of it being the the PSX laser itself is very high, especially as one version of the PSX plays the game/s just fine from CD-R

It is always best though to use the slowest speed the burner supports be that 10x or 4x, that is totally hardware dependant

It is also better to use high quality CD-R's to help get the best burn

Make sure the laser is clean as above



If you wanted to test for yourself just swop/swap out the CD drive from one model to the other (depending on the board layout the ribbon may be slightly different between models but it should still connect fine even if you have the have the machine open while testing that out, most will just fit between models though)

Although the one that is struggling can read original discs fine is not to say the burns are bad or anything, because CD readers as bad as Sony's PSX and PS2 readers are designed to read pressed CD's only but with a slight laser pot adjustment you should be able to improve the CD-R reading, though original pressed disc reading may degrade at the same time, even if the models of the PSX had been the same one, you may of still had issues as every PSX console has the laser pot very slightly differently tuned.

(Do not jump into adjusting the pot though google/youtube a bit about it first for the exact model of PSX and take your time, never do a full or even a quarterly turn you only need to slightly nudge it)

Note: The method to play backups that you use (it is basically a swap/swop trick from retail pressed disc to burned CD-R) does not work with all games and has issues with games that use CDDA and games that are on multi discs like Metal Gear Solid that do not let you create a Disc 2 save from Disc 1 (Final Fantasy Games are fine because at the end of each disc you are given the option to create a save to be used on the next disc)

[o2s360]

If it's the lens/laser, it just doesn't make sense to me why the originals work flawlessly with no slowdowns and skipping in audio and video whatsoever. Anywho its just my luck that my old PAL psx from '96, with a fried power supply, is back in my home country and not with me so that I could possibly use it's laser instead. :/

I'm looking forward to more opinions before I probably return this model (just got it in the mail today and it wasn't even the model advertised (1001) aside from the fact that I was still satisfied with what I got, until this stutter issue).

EDIT: My post was made before I saw Zorlon's above. I will look into the pot thing and see what that does. I'm currently preoccupied with life.

UPDATE: The problem is definitely the lens/laser and a POT adjustment should do the trick. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter and the ones I have seen are the same as the price of the console itself. This machine has been too much of a hassle so far. It has warranty stickers on it from some local store and if the POT adjustments don't work and if I have to return it, the seller may not accept it back seeing that I opened it up. So I think I'm just going to return this based on the fact that this wasn't even the model I ordered and hunt for a pre-modded grey model PS1 online which is hopefully not impossible to find. If only I had my PAL PS1 with me I could just replace the fried power supply and probably would have been good to go since it's other components were perfectly fine (it's chipped too).

[Zorlon]

Swap/swop out the laser from one into the other providing they fit that is, not 100% on those models but most of the old bulky PSX machines can all swap/swop out the laser unit from one machine to the other with reasonable ease

(You can even do that with a PSone laser but the ribbon needs to be moved in the laser unit to make it fit, that may of been vice versa but I know I have done that in the past)

P.S. you may even be able to change the PSU from the one model to the other also, unless it is more than the PSU that got frazzled. just look at the connections the out6put should also be the same between the models it was only the PSone that used an external PSU

[o2s360]

So I said screw it and opened my console anyway, made proper POT adjustments through trial and error and now it works! Tested it with Resident Evil Director's Cut Dualshock, Resident Evil 2 Dualshock and Smackdown! 2. No audio issues whatsoever however there MAY be slight slowdowns when the screen changes to another area in Resident Evil or maybe it's just me I don't know, but I'm satisfied with the outcome! I just hope it stays this way for at least a good amount of time otherwise I'm probably just gonna give up and throw it in the trash. Thanks for the help Zorlon!

Regarding the PSU for the PAL PSX (not present with me at the moment), presuming that the rest of the components haven't fried up, I will need a 220 V PSX PSU instead of the North American 110-125 V that I was going to install from the SCPH-7501 to the PAL one. It just hit me later that there is a voltage difference and the components might need more power to function properly. I think I'm most likely wrong in this regard.

[Warrior]

If its a fat model PSX just don't throw it away, thats spare parts right there.

[Zorlon]

Regarding the PSU for the PAL PSX (not present with me at the moment), presuming that the rest of the components haven't fried up, I will need a 220 V PSX PSU instead of the North American 110-125 V that I was going to install from the SCPH-7501 to the PAL one. It just hit me later that there is a voltage difference and the components might need more power to function properly. I think I'm most likely wrong in this regard.

Not something I know about but you could be correct the wall power out is different for North America vs PAL countries, so the PSU may also be different so maybe not such a great idea, you will need to do some more digging on that subject I can't be of help there :/. but the internal power out for the PSU should be the same regardless even though the power input is not the same (a power convertor would be needed to use a NTSC machine in a PAL region), though a little digging is still best to make sure that the power outage is the same for the PSU board (the working PAL PSU in the NTSC console should go directly providing that the output is indeed the same)

P.S. glad you have something to play with for now though

[o2s360]

Yeah I will have to look into the PSU stuff probably an year from now when I will bring it over here.

Now that I have fixed the laser issue, I went ahead and bought 2 mod chips (a Mayumi v4 for each PS1) with absolutely no soldering experience whatsoever . I know all the materials that I need for the job, I just hope I don't fry my ps1 or accidentally solder a wire coming from the mod chip to the wrong area.

[Zorlon]

have a practice soldering first

p.s. to avoid regional issues get a SCART cable providing your TV can use SCART, it makes it so NTSC games work on a PAL TV as well as giving the best SD image

Forcing NTSC software to display in PAL modes has it's own issues though that is why the above is the best way asides from getting an NTSC TV or a PAL TV with NTSC 60 display support is just getting a SCART cable also known as RGB SCART

Forcing display issues include audio lag and or out of sync audio and sometimes will cause some games to freeze up totally mostly because you are forcing games that run at 30 FPS (60Hz interlaced) to 25 FPS instead (50Hz interlaced)

[o2s360]

I just made a new thread about chipping and soldering equipment for PS1 right here because I'm quite confused and have questions: [On second thought, I don't know if I'm allowed to even talk about PS1 modding on this forum so I'm playing it safe. I ended up not making a thread just yet.]

What about playing a PAL PS1/PS2 on an NTSC TV? I tried making my PAL PS2 work on my TV here in the US and it was just black and white and consistently rolled across the screen. Do you know of any converter/cable that might help? Also on a side note, I always play NTSC games on it (it's chipped).

[deadlegion]

Talking about console modding is fine.

[o2s360]

I changed my mind about modding it on my own and I'm just going to send it to someone to do it for me. I don't want my PS1 circuit to be fried even though I have 3 of them.