PSX DTL-H2000 HELP!! :-(

[H360]

Here is a photo of some of the parts I was wondering about:

The 'Voltage Regulator':



And these:
What are those cream coloured things?
What are those two tubed shaped, black ceramic things with the metal bar linking them together (to the left of the closest capacitor you see)?
And lastly, what is that giant blue ball thing between the two ceramic capacitors?

[Jorge Nuno]

Here is a photo of some of the parts I was wondering about:

The 'Voltage Regulator':

After a bit of looking around it appears to be a Fairchild KSB596, a power PNP transístor.. Since its getting really hot, maybe something is shorted elsewhere, I doubt they would design a board without taking care of heat. The wrap tubing is probably to prevent potential shorting between the metallic tab and whatever is underneath it..

And these:
What are those cream coloured things?

Ferrites + integrated capacitor for high frequency filtering, commonly used for signal EMI filtering before they reach external connectors. A ferrite (bead) is just a piece of wire with an iron core around it.. (or 2 irons in this case)

What are those two tubed shaped, black ceramic things with the metal bar linking them together (to the left of the closest capacitor you see)?

Same as above without the capacitor, cuttoff frequency is higher than the above, used if an external going signal carries high frequency components, or sometimes to bridge analog and digital supplies, but keep them separate somewhat..

And lastly, what is that giant blue ball thing between the two ceramic capacitors?

An inductor

Replied in the quote

[H360]

Thank you. I had a feeling 'two tubed shaped, black ceramic things with the metal bar' were ferrite's. Just never seen them like that before.

I will replace all of the capacitors as a start. Then, I will check the smaller transistors, and then bigger PNP transistor that was getting hot.

[H360]

I got the capacitors ordered.
Should be here in less than 8 weeks -_-

Will update then...

Oh, I got the same brand, top quality Japanese capacitors. In particular, the Sony DTL's use the Nichicon brand.

I went with electrolytic. I could have used the solid ones (forgot the name) but it doesn't matter...

Sony DTL-H2000 CPU-board:
47uf at 16v,
10uf at 16v,
100uf at 16v and
220uf at 10v.

[l_oliveira]

I went with electrolytic. I could have used the solid ones (forgot the name) but it doesn't matter...

Tantalum is the metal, Tantalum capacitor is the name.

[H360]

Tantalum is the metal, Tantalum capacitor is the name.

Thank you. Now I know what they are :)

[klarth]

In case it helps, I got mine working on my 440lx by disabling my serial ports and parallel ports. Board had way too much stuff installed on it.

[H360]

In case it helps, I got mine working on my 440lx by disabling my serial ports and parallel ports. Board had way too much stuff installed on it.

Yeah I disabled mine also when I was changing the PnP settings in the BIOS.

There is something wrong with the board because it is not giving me a picture.

[H360]

Okay. Update time.

Bad news: My soldering iron broke again (ceramic element is bad).
Good news: I received all the capacitors AND ordered a new Hakko FX-888 soldering iron yesterday.

[H360]

Received the soldering iron today. It is the best soldering iron I have ever worked with.
70% of the capacitors have been replaced... I will update again when I actually plug it in, and let you guys know what happens.

[Cyberghost]

Fingers crossed.

[H360]

Hmm... Still does not work :(
Must be something else. God dammit, its so much hard work to get them running...

It still has the exact same problem. No video. Just the v-hold lines like it is waiting for it to 'boot' (like a standard PlayStation 1 does).

[H360]

Here are some images that caught my attention:

First off, the capacitors removed...





There is a resistor jumping here on the CPU board:





A capacitor bridge and a grounding wire on the CPU board:




This is where the ground is, from the black wire above (of course to the PC chassis) on the CPU board:




However, there is also one here directly below it on the next set of headers:

[Cyberghost]

Hmm... Still does not work :(
Must be something else. God dammit, its so much hard work to get them running...

It still has the exact same problem. No video. Just the v-hold lines like it is waiting for it to 'boot' (like a standard PlayStation 1 does).

Sorry to hear Matt... I wonder what else could be the problem, hope you'll keep working on them and get them running again because it'd be a shame for those boards to go to waste.

[unclejun]

According to some of the install docs, the dtl-h2000 was incompatible with several computer brands and models back in the day...maybe you should try to find an another motherboard or computer, maybe something older than a Pentium 3.

[Cyberghost]

My motherboard is an asus P5B with an amd k6 processor at 300MHz and an S-something agp graphics card. Im running windows 98se with 96MB ram. From what I hear, I don't believe the board is dead, and thats based on the fact that you visually inspected the board and saw no damage, and also youre using motherboards that have a history of being unstable. Very possible that I'm wrong, but I wouldn't doubt that the board is/was in fact ok. If you lived close by, I would be happy to try them on my pc, even just for power up. If it were me though, I'd go for a new asus motherboard. My first PC I tried my boards with was a compaq and the boards did NOT work with that POS PC, but I knew I had to find a better motherboard to be sure about my boards. my current P5B motherboard handles the DTL-H2000's and the DTL-H2500's perfectly fine.

[H360]

Hmm... That is interesting then. I thought as soon as the boards would have got 12 volts and a ground, then they would boot to the coloured bars.
I do have an older motherboard, but I need to buy an older power supply, ram and CPU.
Wont happen for a while.

[SilverBull]

I think I remember from my experiments with the DTL-H2000 that the card should output a video signal as soon as the system is turned on. Not sure whether it shows color bars, but it should show _something_ (even if it just a black screen with correct composite sync).

For a certain reason, you should always start with no CD inserted into the external drive. The BIOS on the H2000 is so outdated that it is in fact incompatible with retail PS1 games. That's why you need to run that quirky kernel patcher after every (soft) reset, and cannot use the all-in-one "run" command to reset and start a retail game from CD. You must always start in dev mode, then run the kernel patcher/updater, then your own program. It is possible to run retail games, but you need to execute LoadExec (not sure about the name; sorry, it's been some time I have been looking into this) manually. Either adjust the cdexec sample, or write your own launcher. I recommend writing a small program that reads cdrom:system.cnf, gets the executable name and parameters from there, then starts the game.All I wrote about the kernel updater above applies to environments using the card in PSYQ mode (DEXBIOS). I have never used DECI mode (required by the GUI tools, Win98 VXD and so on.), so they might behave differently.

Another thing that might be causing you trouble is exactly that, related to PSYQ vs. DECI mode. I know from the H2500 (_not_ from the H2000) that it needs a different BIOS ROM for PSYQ mode (DOS/command line window, H25BIOS; the VXD must _not_ be installed) in comparison to DECI mode (required by all SNSys GUI tools; the VXD must be installed). Loading H25BIOS with a wrong (or DECI) firmware causes instant system hang. H25BIOS is the H2500 equivalent of DEXBIOS.So this may be a stupid idea, but did you check that the EPROM on the card is intact and actually contains the right image? You may want to search the SDK folders for H2000 EPROM images and check the READMEs in the corresponding folders whether they say anything about the environment that image is supposed to work for.

[H360]

I dont know. Every one of Ghosts H2000's had the coloured bars on boot. I mean, unless there is a non-volatile RAM on the board, then it makes sense.
Mine seems alive, and dead at the same time.
I will try and get that older motherboard up and running with the H2000 and see what happens. Rather get the motherboard theory out of the way....

I will post some pictures of the motherboard in a few minutes.
I need help identifying what RAM I need to get, and what CPU you would reccomend for the H2000 (something with a maths co-processor embedded would be best).

[SilverBull]

I dont know. Every one of Ghosts H2000's had the coloured bars on boot. I mean, unless there is a non-volatile RAM on the board, then it makes sense.

As I wrote, there is an EPROM. In contrast to the DTL-H2500, which has a flash ROM.I don't know whether there are dedicated EPROM images for the DTL-H2000 for PSYQ versus DECI environments. If that was the case, you could have a perfectly working board that just has the wrong EPROM image. So unless you either re-create the original environment or re-write the EPROM with the image matching your particular environment, the card would not work properly.

I need help identifying what RAM I need to get, and what CPU you would reccomend for the H2000 (something with a maths co-processor embedded would be best).

I'm running my H2000 in an Asus P4B with (I think) a Pentium 3. Thinking about a maths co-processor does only matter if you intent to use a 386-based mainboard; everything including and after 486 includes one.