- Jun 6, 2019
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- Dickibow
- AG Join Date
- February 25, 2005
Hi Everyone,
I found an old PS2 DTL-T10000 for sale on Facebook marketplace several months ago and it was advertised as untested and sold for spares/repair.
During this period of time the UK was under its strictest level of C19 lockdown so I couldn’t justify driving a round trip of 320 miles to purchase it. Anyway, luckily for me once the restrictions were lifted I contacted the seller again who said it was still available and it was mine if I came to collect. Knowing how fragile these things are (I’ve owned two before but many years ago), I opted to collect in person.
The seller worked at the local recycling centre and somebody came up to him with two of these machines (a DTL-T15000 and my DTL-T10000). The person said that his employer had asked him to bring these computers in for disposal. Luckily, the seller who was big into general gaming (maybe not dev stuff so much), took the machines and later on ‘rescued’ them.
The DTL-T15000 was already sold when I arrived to collect the DTL-T10000 but still, I was happy with the price. The negatives were that the machine was sold untested as spares/repair. There were no cables or other ancillaries, and the vertical stand was missing. The machine was also extremely dirty.
I packed the DTL-T10000 safely into the boot of my car and off I drove. When I got home the first thing was to inspect it.
The model number is DTL-T10000H A. This is one of the latest revisions of T10k models I’m led to believe. The manufacturer sticker on the rear dates the console from 2003 which was well into the PS2 lifecycle. I cleaned the casing with warm soapy water and cotton wool buds for the grooves. It cleaned up quite nicely, considering how difficult the rubberised coating texture is to maintain.
I then powered the console up and the power/reset lights turned on, and to my surprise (and relief) the disc tray opened and closed without issue. No hard drive light came on though, and the console just continuously beeped. This meant the POST wasn’t completing. Googling the symptoms of the beeps in conjunction with the BIOS manufacture suggested the memory was bad, so I opened the console up to clean and reseat the memory module.
There is a nice SCEA asset tag “if found” sticker on the rear which is peeling a little bit, but the main warranty sticker was still intact on the rear, so I lightly peeled the top part off and opened up the PC side. I peeled off the single-use copper interference tape (this was brilliant because it meant that nobody had been inside the machine before) and slid off the metal panel to expose the insides.
The first thing I noticed was that both hard drives were still present, and that there was a DTL-T14000 SN Systems DVD emulator installed - what a result!
I removed the RAM which was a single 128Mb stick and cleaned it gently with a piece of plain white paper. The paper removed a thin layer of black grime and then I re-inserted it and tested the machine again.
The good news was now that I had a picture. There were two errors displayed. The first error regarding the floppy drive was actually a result of the second error relating to the CMOS. Basically the CMOS battery had died at some point and the BIOS has reverted back to its default manufacturer settings which were now asking the TOOL to boot from a floppy drive which obviously didn’t exist. I entered the BIOS and made the necessary adjustments to allow the machine to boot remotely as it was designed to have been and retried.
The machine was now booting properly and it started to boot Red Hat Linux 6.2. There was a failure loading the drivers for the DTL-T14000, but I ignored that for the time being assuming that I might need to install something at a later date. I logged in and the machine had the host name preset of “PirateToolUK01”. Strangely by this time I had noticed that the TV screen wasn’t displaying the network information. There was a signal, but nothing showing. I changed the DIP switch on the rear of the machine from NTSC-PAL, and vice versa, but still nothing, even after a reboot. Weird…
Anyway, I decided to try and run a disc based game anyway. I had a PS2 preview code version of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 5 so I popped it into the disc tray, and tried to launch it via dsedb on the command line. The command wasn’t recognised. In fact, none of the ds* commands were recognised. I was gutted…..I had no idea why and frantically started googling. I found an old assembler thread where somebody had experienced this before but the the thread drew a blank and despite the efforts of the community I don’t know if the problem was resolved. I also noticed that the ‘CD/DVD Drive’ light did not illuminate despite the TOOL being in DVD/TOOL mode. Anyway, I put the console away for a week or so to have a think….
About a week later I thought I’d see if I could get the machine to boot-up properly without failing to load that SN System psxss driver. Then I remembered that because the machine was unplugged I had to reconfigure the BIOS settings again. That’s it…..off I went to the local supermarket to get a CR2032 battery!!
I carefully removed and installed the new battery and reconfigured the BIOS settings and booted the machine up. And then, just like that, I noticed that there was no error for the psxss driver. Also, I noticed that the TV screen came alive with the network information. The ‘CD/DVD drive’ illuminated green too. Shall I try and boot that game….? Sure, why not. Guess what….the dsedb command worked fine and the game loaded first time! Amazing!!! I was so happy!!
Now that the TOOL was working as intended, I installed SSH2 so that I can remote in from my laptop without having to use a monitor. I also installed ProDG for PS2 on my XP dev laptop but I can’t get it to register with the crack/keygen. If anyone has any ideas about that I’d be grateful to hear from you! I also installed CodeWarrior for
PS2 which is working.
Please excuse the mess, but I was excited that the network info screen had appeared!
Was the dead battery really the cause of all the previous failures? It was a new one to me anyway. The controller ports and memory cards worked perfectly too. I was so happy that I had a fully functioning TOOL….the only thing letting it down now was the lack of vertical stand.
I knew there was a thread on here about a member whose TOOL had been absolutely destroyed during shipment and he was determined to 3D print the plastic housing. I reached out to @hermesconrad (big big thanks!!!) and he very kindly sent me the 3D print file for the triangles that formed part of the stand, and also a technical drawing of the metal base plate. I sent the file to a 3D printing company within the UK and opted to have the triangles printed at 200dpi in a blue coloured PLA with a 20% infill.
Whilst the triangles were being printed, I sourced a 2mm thick sheet of mild steel and began fabricating the base plate. I use the term “fabricate” very loosely. Basically, I trimmed it to the correct size and drilled the holes in the appropriate places as to attach the plate properly, and affix the newly made triangles which arrived just a few days after placing the order. The quality of the print was superb and I was pleasantly surprised by the finish of the outer surface of the triangles. They are quite glossy and there is a light diagonal weave if you look closely. I initially planned to sand and paint the triangles, but after opening the package and seeing them for the first time I thought these were perfect and didn’t require any additional work at all!
I went to a local hardware shop that has pretty much every type of screw and fixing you could ask for. I took him the sample of a screw from the TOOL which is the same type that is used to attach the stand to the base of the machine. I bought some of those and also a bag of very tiny self-tappers that would be used to attach the triangles to the top side of the base plate.
Here is the end result - what do you think?
PS2 TOOLs are very rare these days and need to be saved if the opportunity arises, so I’m lucky that I found this one. They can also be problematic and/or temperamental so hopefully this thread can assist others. At least it might direct someone to change the CMOS battery. They should read very close to 3 volts using a multimeter. Anything lower than 2.9 should be replaced.
My very special thanks go to:
@hermesconrad for the vertical stand files and advice.
@Port187 for his tips/advice and chat.
@unclejun and Parris for the disassembly guide.
I found an old PS2 DTL-T10000 for sale on Facebook marketplace several months ago and it was advertised as untested and sold for spares/repair.
During this period of time the UK was under its strictest level of C19 lockdown so I couldn’t justify driving a round trip of 320 miles to purchase it. Anyway, luckily for me once the restrictions were lifted I contacted the seller again who said it was still available and it was mine if I came to collect. Knowing how fragile these things are (I’ve owned two before but many years ago), I opted to collect in person.
The seller worked at the local recycling centre and somebody came up to him with two of these machines (a DTL-T15000 and my DTL-T10000). The person said that his employer had asked him to bring these computers in for disposal. Luckily, the seller who was big into general gaming (maybe not dev stuff so much), took the machines and later on ‘rescued’ them.
The DTL-T15000 was already sold when I arrived to collect the DTL-T10000 but still, I was happy with the price. The negatives were that the machine was sold untested as spares/repair. There were no cables or other ancillaries, and the vertical stand was missing. The machine was also extremely dirty.
I packed the DTL-T10000 safely into the boot of my car and off I drove. When I got home the first thing was to inspect it.
The model number is DTL-T10000H A. This is one of the latest revisions of T10k models I’m led to believe. The manufacturer sticker on the rear dates the console from 2003 which was well into the PS2 lifecycle. I cleaned the casing with warm soapy water and cotton wool buds for the grooves. It cleaned up quite nicely, considering how difficult the rubberised coating texture is to maintain.
I then powered the console up and the power/reset lights turned on, and to my surprise (and relief) the disc tray opened and closed without issue. No hard drive light came on though, and the console just continuously beeped. This meant the POST wasn’t completing. Googling the symptoms of the beeps in conjunction with the BIOS manufacture suggested the memory was bad, so I opened the console up to clean and reseat the memory module.
There is a nice SCEA asset tag “if found” sticker on the rear which is peeling a little bit, but the main warranty sticker was still intact on the rear, so I lightly peeled the top part off and opened up the PC side. I peeled off the single-use copper interference tape (this was brilliant because it meant that nobody had been inside the machine before) and slid off the metal panel to expose the insides.
The first thing I noticed was that both hard drives were still present, and that there was a DTL-T14000 SN Systems DVD emulator installed - what a result!
I removed the RAM which was a single 128Mb stick and cleaned it gently with a piece of plain white paper. The paper removed a thin layer of black grime and then I re-inserted it and tested the machine again.
The good news was now that I had a picture. There were two errors displayed. The first error regarding the floppy drive was actually a result of the second error relating to the CMOS. Basically the CMOS battery had died at some point and the BIOS has reverted back to its default manufacturer settings which were now asking the TOOL to boot from a floppy drive which obviously didn’t exist. I entered the BIOS and made the necessary adjustments to allow the machine to boot remotely as it was designed to have been and retried.
The machine was now booting properly and it started to boot Red Hat Linux 6.2. There was a failure loading the drivers for the DTL-T14000, but I ignored that for the time being assuming that I might need to install something at a later date. I logged in and the machine had the host name preset of “PirateToolUK01”. Strangely by this time I had noticed that the TV screen wasn’t displaying the network information. There was a signal, but nothing showing. I changed the DIP switch on the rear of the machine from NTSC-PAL, and vice versa, but still nothing, even after a reboot. Weird…
Anyway, I decided to try and run a disc based game anyway. I had a PS2 preview code version of Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja 5 so I popped it into the disc tray, and tried to launch it via dsedb on the command line. The command wasn’t recognised. In fact, none of the ds* commands were recognised. I was gutted…..I had no idea why and frantically started googling. I found an old assembler thread where somebody had experienced this before but the the thread drew a blank and despite the efforts of the community I don’t know if the problem was resolved. I also noticed that the ‘CD/DVD Drive’ light did not illuminate despite the TOOL being in DVD/TOOL mode. Anyway, I put the console away for a week or so to have a think….
About a week later I thought I’d see if I could get the machine to boot-up properly without failing to load that SN System psxss driver. Then I remembered that because the machine was unplugged I had to reconfigure the BIOS settings again. That’s it…..off I went to the local supermarket to get a CR2032 battery!!
I carefully removed and installed the new battery and reconfigured the BIOS settings and booted the machine up. And then, just like that, I noticed that there was no error for the psxss driver. Also, I noticed that the TV screen came alive with the network information. The ‘CD/DVD drive’ illuminated green too. Shall I try and boot that game….? Sure, why not. Guess what….the dsedb command worked fine and the game loaded first time! Amazing!!! I was so happy!!
Now that the TOOL was working as intended, I installed SSH2 so that I can remote in from my laptop without having to use a monitor. I also installed ProDG for PS2 on my XP dev laptop but I can’t get it to register with the crack/keygen. If anyone has any ideas about that I’d be grateful to hear from you! I also installed CodeWarrior for
PS2 which is working.
Please excuse the mess, but I was excited that the network info screen had appeared!
Was the dead battery really the cause of all the previous failures? It was a new one to me anyway. The controller ports and memory cards worked perfectly too. I was so happy that I had a fully functioning TOOL….the only thing letting it down now was the lack of vertical stand.
I knew there was a thread on here about a member whose TOOL had been absolutely destroyed during shipment and he was determined to 3D print the plastic housing. I reached out to @hermesconrad (big big thanks!!!) and he very kindly sent me the 3D print file for the triangles that formed part of the stand, and also a technical drawing of the metal base plate. I sent the file to a 3D printing company within the UK and opted to have the triangles printed at 200dpi in a blue coloured PLA with a 20% infill.
Whilst the triangles were being printed, I sourced a 2mm thick sheet of mild steel and began fabricating the base plate. I use the term “fabricate” very loosely. Basically, I trimmed it to the correct size and drilled the holes in the appropriate places as to attach the plate properly, and affix the newly made triangles which arrived just a few days after placing the order. The quality of the print was superb and I was pleasantly surprised by the finish of the outer surface of the triangles. They are quite glossy and there is a light diagonal weave if you look closely. I initially planned to sand and paint the triangles, but after opening the package and seeing them for the first time I thought these were perfect and didn’t require any additional work at all!
I went to a local hardware shop that has pretty much every type of screw and fixing you could ask for. I took him the sample of a screw from the TOOL which is the same type that is used to attach the stand to the base of the machine. I bought some of those and also a bag of very tiny self-tappers that would be used to attach the triangles to the top side of the base plate.
Here is the end result - what do you think?
PS2 TOOLs are very rare these days and need to be saved if the opportunity arises, so I’m lucky that I found this one. They can also be problematic and/or temperamental so hopefully this thread can assist others. At least it might direct someone to change the CMOS battery. They should read very close to 3 volts using a multimeter. Anything lower than 2.9 should be replaced.
My very special thanks go to:
@hermesconrad for the vertical stand files and advice.
@Port187 for his tips/advice and chat.
@unclejun and Parris for the disassembly guide.
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