Easiest PS2 SSD and Fan Upgrade | This PS2 Is Completely SILENT!

[Applause] this ps2 like many others out there has a broken dvd drive that no longer reads games essentially making it an oversized paperweight but with so many great mods and solutions out there for the ps2 such as free mcboot we can give this old ps2 new life and get plenty more use out of it not only that we can make it better than it was before by adding an ssd and upgrading the fan making this ps2 a silent beast of a system so let me show you how to do it [Music] hey everyone how's it going my name is tito and welcome to another episode of retro renew today we're going to turn this broken original model ps2 into the ultimate version of itself and the really cool thing about this is you'll only need a screwdriver set to do it now for those of you who remember this particular ps2 was mailed to the channel by a really awesome patreon supporter so i have to give a huge shout out and thank you to eric castro eric actually has a youtube channel of his own called bartender at large where he shows you how to make some really interesting and exotic cocktails so if that's something you're interested in definitely go and check it out and again eric thank you so much for your support and sending in this playstation 2. anyway my primary goal with this console is to really just quiet things down the fan in the original model ps2s are quite audible and when you add a hard drive to it it gets even louder when a hard drive is installed the fans speed up causing more noise and the spinning platter in the hard drive certainly adds to the overall noise level so we're gonna upgrade the fan and do some other mods to make this broken ps2 into a silent gaming beast okay the specimen we'll be working on today is a 30 000 one model ps2 which has certainly seen some better days on top of giving this thing a deep deep clean we're going to be installing an ssd as well as an ultra quiet knock to a fan inside of a custom bracket oh and while we're in there we'll replace the clock battery too alright so in this video i'm going to start off by showing you all the parts i'll be using for this project then i'll demonstrate how to put it all together and set things up review the features of the build and measure any improvements over a stock ps2 go over the pros and cons and of course provide you with my overall thoughts ok so the first thing you'll need is an ssd now the primary reason for using an ssd over a standard hard drive is noise the ssd operates silently especially when compared to the original ide drive or sata hard drives additionally ssds typically run cooler and are more energy efficient now please note the ssd will not provide any meaningful performance boost because the ps2 itself is a bottleneck using the ssd is again primarily to keep noise levels down and if you ask me i think it's actually pretty cool to have an ssd and a 22 year old console now in order to prep the ssd you will need a way to connect it to the computer i have this inexpensive sata to usb cable which does the job perfectly additionally you'll need a sata drive adapter for the ps2 expansion bay these are readily available and will connect our ssd to the ps2 now unfortunately these are not network adapters they do make sata converter kits for the original sony network adapter but for the sake of simplicity these sata adapters work perfectly and are inexpensive and plug and play which is fantastic now something that isn't totally necessary but highly recommended is this 3d printed two and a half inch drive caddy from a company called tpo which will help secure the ssd inside the expansion bay and keep it from rattling around again this is optional but i highly recommend getting it next you'll need a copy of free mcboot now this is something that you could make yourself or you could buy a pre-made card like this one which is already set up with opl and works right out of the box this will enable us to play our games off the ssd and the last item is of course the noctua fan which comes pre-installed in this 3d printed bracket this too is from the company tpo and has the correct termination so it's simply plug and play with no modification needed alright so that's everything i'll be using for this ps2 build now let me show you how to put it all together okay so first thing we're gonna do is install the fan to do that we need to disassemble the ps2 but not all the way start off by removing the eight phillips screws on the bottom some early model ps2s may have two additional screws next carefully lift the top off by tilting it toward you like so and oh my goodness look at all this dust yeah i'm gonna have to completely disassemble this ps2 and give it a deep clean anyway unfasten the two phillips screws on either side of the controller ports as well as the one by the fan assembly then place your hand inside the expansion bay and lift the ps2 internals out of the bottom shell holy moly take a look at all these dust bunnies a deep clean is most definitely an order [Music] now remove the power port as well as the fan assembly flip the console over and unfasten the four screws securing the power supply lift the power supply off and set it aside then remove the expansion bay bottom cage as well as the insulating plastic sheet you can now access the fan connector on the motherboard if your ps2 is in pristine condition and doesn't need to be cleaned like mine you can jump to the time stamp on the screen to continue with the fan installation as for me i'm actually going to continue tearing down the ps2 so i can give it a deep clean so while you wait enjoy the disassembly and cleaning montage [Music] [Music] awesome the ps2 is looking a whole lot better now and like i said i'm going to replace the clock battery while i'm in here the old one simply pops out and you can put in a new one now back to the montage [Music] okay now we're at a point where we can install the new fan go ahead and plug it into the fan connector on the motherboard then with a piece of cap on tape secure the wire to the metal chassis [Music] now reinstall the plastic insulator as well as the expansion bay cage reset the power supply making sure the four connection pins are properly aligned then refasten the four screws securing the power supply [Music] now grab our freshly cleaned bottom shell and then drop in the assembled ps2 internals tuck in the excess fan cabling to keep it out of the way and then slot in the entire fan assembly then secure it with a single phillips screw go ahead and reconnect the controller memory card assembly [Music] and then drop it in place secure it with two phillips screws on either side [Music] then reinstall the power and eject button assembly into the top shell housing like so [Music] then place the top shell back onto the console flip it over and button it all up [Music] fantastic we are now done installing the fan but now we need to set up the ssd go ahead and plug the sata to usb cable to the ssd and the other end to your computer we then need to go and download an application called winhip i'll have a link to it in the video description [Music] once downloaded go ahead and extract the files then go ahead and open the application but as the administrator this is important otherwise it won't work properly hit ok and then click select drive on the top left of the window and select the ssd drive make sure you are selecting the correct drive before proceeding hit ok and then select format drive hit the application drop down menu and select 48 bit because my 500 gigabyte ssd is larger than the 128 gigabyte limit if your drive is less than 128 gigabytes then you need to use 28 bit now hit ok you'll get a warning message making sure you want to format the drive go ahead and say yes then hit ok great now the ssd has been formatted for the ps2 next let's add some games select add images then press add images on this window navigate to the location of your iso backup files and select them the nice thing here is you can add multiple images at a time now press open and then select start all your games will be transferred to the ssd great that's it now go ahead and disconnect the ssd from the computer and let's install it into the ps2 grab your 3d printed bracket and ssd notice the dimple here this will secure your ssd by slotting into the screw hole so make sure the dimple and screw hole are aligned on both sides of the ssd and then press it into place great now the ssd is secured to the bracket go ahead and attach it to the ps2 sata adapter now slot the adapter into the ps2 and then fasten the two flathead screws to fully secure it and that's it our ultimate silent ps2 is complete the ps2 is one of my favorite consoles and with these mods i love it even more the convenience of having your favorite titles all in one place and easily accessible is extremely convenient and the new fan is whisper quiet i mean other than the lit up leds in the front you really can't even tell that the console is on alright let's quickly go over the features these mods bring to this 22 year old ps2 well first and most obviously these mods make the ps2 super quiet i mean it literally makes no noise at all i even had to look at the fan to make sure it was working to show you just how loud it is let me first demonstrate how loud an original fan is on an unmodified original ps2 that also happens to be a thirty thousand one model here you can see the baseline noise level in the room is about 39 decibels as soon as i kick on the ps2 the noise level jumps to about 50 decibels so that's definitely quite a jump in volume now the same ps2 with the network adapter and ide hard drive installed we can see that the noise level is just ever so slightly louder at a little over 51 decibels but now let's check out our modified ps2 with ssd and upgraded fan again we have a baseline of about 39 decibels in the room and when we turn the console on you'll notice that the sound level hovers around 39 and 40 decibels this fan literally makes no noise at all which is absolutely incredible so i think it's safe to say that the fan is definitely doing a great job at keeping the noise down and of course the ssd is completely silent speaking of which the ssd works perfectly and we're able to load our games from it using opl everything seems to load fairly quickly and i've been playing some games which work absolutely flawlessly this is honestly a really awesome build for any fan of the ps2 now if someone could tell me how to get rid of these scratch marks here on top of the console this thing would be darn near perfect so one thing that i am curious about is how the ssd setup compares to the mc2 sio kit that i looked at in last week's video if you'd be interested in a comparison video let me know down below in the comments okay so that pretty much covers all the major features of this playstation 2 build but now let's quickly go over the pros and cons starting with the pros firstly i have to say that this was a very simple and straightforward build all that was needed was a good screwdriver kit and a little patience for those wanting to get into modding i think this is a great first project to tackle probably the biggest pro is just how silent we were able to make the console i mean it essentially makes no noise at all which is fantastic and the last pro is being able to have your entire library of games stored on the ssd drive ready to be played at a moment's notice now getting into the cons there really isn't much to say however to me the biggest issue is surprisingly the fan itself while it is great and does a very good job of being silent it's questionable how much cooling it's actually doing looking at the specs of the fan you'll notice that it's a 12 volt unit however the ps2 only provides between 5 and 7 volts of power through the connector we used on the motherboard so what that tells me is that the fan is not getting the power it requires to spin at its rated speed now while this may be a potential issue it's unclear if it's actually a problem i've been using this modded ps2 and have left it on for hours on end and i didn't run into any overheating issues i've actually been speaking with greg at laser bear industries who brought this potential issue to my attention additionally greg is planning on making a replacement fan kit for the ps2 as well he's currently trying to find a suitable fan that can run off the 5 volts provided by the ps2 or utilize a similar 12 volt fan but instead tapping power from a different location on the board to get the 12 volts needed regardless once laser bear releases their kit you can be sure i'll be taking a look at it in any case i think these mods are a fantastic way to bring new life to your old ps2 console i have to say that i am super happy with this build and excited to revisit some of my favorite ps2 titles anyway thank you all so much for watching and i look forward to seeing you in the next one until then see you all next thursday [Music] you

Channel: Macho Nacho Productions

Views: 1,006,707

Keywords: macho nacho productions, macho nacho, mx4sio, retro gaming, retro console, how to, pos2 ssd upgrade, playstation 2 ssd upgrade, harddisk, hdd, playstation 2, free mcboot, free mc boot, ps2 fan mod, ps2 softmod, playstation 2022, ultimate ssd mod for the ps2, make the ps2 silent, noctua fan mod ps2, the ultimate ps2, ps2 mods, playstation 2 hacks and mods, mc2sio, mx4sio vs ssd, ssd vs usb vs network, free mcboot ps2

Id: dwElnXBAbnI

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 18 2022