u/iVirtualZero

I decided to pick up the ThunderPSU. I got tired of using External PSU's with my modded DC and I switched over to the ThunderPSU just like the original, you simply just plug it in and you're all set, no external power supplies and no USB C adaptors needed. Back to the old school two pin plug that you can find laying around your house, and it's essentially specced exactly like the original with ultra low ripple output along with it running much cooler than the original PSU with universal voltage, no Stepdown and no step up converters needed.

The only downside is it does cost slightly more than say the ReDream or a Robot Retro Power USB C Board paired with a good adapter like a Meanwhile PSU or some Anker adapter. But it's still well worth it over those, simply due to the fact that I can just plug it in and play. No need for sourcing a quality external PSU or having to repair/recap the original PSU and perhaps having to use step ups or step down converters. If you want to fully deck out your DC, a PSU like this is the perfect choice for it. But I would love to see more PSU's like this. I want a modernised PSU for the Sega Saturn and the OG Xbox, that you simply just plug in.

It looks like I've already figured out the two big Polymer Caps as 470uf 6.3v. But I'm not sure what the value of these other capacitors are. I don't know what 101 means on these caps. I'm guessing it's 10uf on the Polymers, but I never seen an electrolytic cap labelled this way.

There have been many moments where the games I wanted had terrible box art to the point where I'd rather just pay up for postage and tax just to import it from another region all because it has better boxart. Other times I'm lucky and the game in my region has the nice box art. Has anyone encountered this issue when game collecting? I know it's a minor nitpick, many of us just want to play the game and the game remains the same at least in most cases. But that boxart just looks terrible, like what we're these people thinking when they were localising these games. What games do you know of that have great boxart in one region and crappy boxart in the other? Or games that have been ruined by localisation.

Hi I acquired a 1.4 Xbox to build the Ultimate OG Xbox with from eBay sold as spares and repairs which was a big mistake on my end as I thought this would have been an easy fix. It looks like the fault is more complicated than I thought. The console was already premodded by the previous owner and the red flag being that the D0 point was torn and I'm not sure what else the previous owner screwed up on. But I can't find any other signs. I repaired the D0 point trace and tested the Xbox and it was already TSOP Modded with the M8 Plus Bios. And so everything seemed to check out good for building the Ultimate Xbox with.

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I then installed 128mb ram and replaced the capacitors with some fancy Polymer ones along with my Open Xenium Modchip with a NewHaven front panel Display and PrometheOs, aswell as a Repaste and a recapped fully working Samsung DVD Drive with new drive belt, custom 80 Wire IDE cables and a Xenium Sata Adaptor. And that's where I ran into problems. Upon booting the console kept giving me an instant Error 13 and an Error 16 faults. For example Cerbios and Ind Bios would give me Error 13 and the M8 Plus Bios would give me Error 16. Even though the HDD was set up perfectly with FatXplorer where I paid for the licence to transfer files over to the FatX formatted drive on my PC.

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Another thing I noticed was my Xbox would detect the HDD, I can unlock it and lock it in PrometheOS, but the Xbox sees no partitions when trying to browse through to add bioses. In fact I had to use another Xbox, place my Open Xenium chip into that, and use that same HDD where I was able to browse the partitions to add bioses to it. So clearly there is a fault with this 1.4 that simply isn't communicating properly with the HDD. I even tried swapping the HDD, the DVD Drives, I tried various IDE to Sata adaptors and different IDE cables and no luck, instant Error 13/16, even when trying to boot into Slayers or Hexen. The error screen just pops up instantly, and I get Error 7 with nothing connected. I'm guessing my 1.4 Xbox is also not communicating with the DVD drive since I can't boot into any disc.

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So I took apart the Xbox again to have a look at the motherboard and I can't find anything, I reflowed the IDE connector and I double checked the D0 trace that I repaired to make sure it's not shorting with anything. I checked for other damaged traces and I can't find anything, I checked for missing components and besides the one missing transistor which is near the clock cap that I removed and that's just about it. Another thing I read online is perhaps the Eeprom chip is faulty. Is that the reason why my Xbox is not communicating with the HDD? How does a fault like this even occur? And can it be fixed? Or is it something else entirely?

I had my beat up Xbox Series Elite controller sitting in the junk pile for too long, so I decided to restore it and give it a new shell, TMR analogue sticks, new thumbcaps and new shoulder buttons. And now it's better than new since it will now never get stick drift. I also installed some TMR Sticks into my standard S controller which should really make it last.

I decided to bring this 20th Anniversary PS4 controller into 2026, by giving it the following upgrades. Hall Effect sticks to permanently fix stick drift faults with new custom interchangeable thumb caps along with a USB C charge port. Even though I no longer have a PS4. I will be using this with my PS1 with a Bluetooth adaptor and also as an extra controller for my PS5 and my PC.

I thought I make a post about my FZ1 3DO that I have modded and repaired years ago. It was imported from Japan with Disc Read Issues, so instead of replacing it with an ODE, I decided to repair it along with some cool fancy mods. I can now say I have the Ultimate 3DO, it reads original discs and audio discs perfectly and it's fully recapped with an external universal 12v PSU. I use Leicke Brand 12v 5 Amp PSU for clean power and another option for the 3DO is to switch to the Wii's PSU or to USB C. I think the only thing left now is to pick up an External Flashcart.

It has the following mods and fixes

A New Laser

Replacement Gear Motor and Shaft Set

New Drive Belt along with a regrease of the rails and worm motor

New Capacitors from Console 5. I fully recapped the Disc Drive, Motherboard and replaced all 7 caps in the control pad.

A 12 External DC PSU mod

8 Pin Din RGB Mod with 240p and 480p support

In Game Reset Mod to be able to reset the console with a controller by pressing (L+R+Stop and Play)

New CR2354 Clock Battery Socketed

This makes my Sega Genesis and my Super Nintendo look like babies toys.

I thought I showcased my original Ultimate Neo Geo AES build 3-5 revision, that I have finally been able to complete. I have replaced the motherboard with a new one in glossy black to match the aesthetic of the original, I didn't go for Matte black since it would look too much like a modern PC motherboard, gloss looks more Retro. Plus the original PCB was rotting/corroding away with a bit of delamination. Replacing it with a modern new PCB has made it like new again, along with that, I have Recapped it with a Console 5 kit, socketed all of the dip chips with a Unibios along with an RGB Amp. I also replaced the Yamaha YM2610 Sound Chip and the Z80/ the Ram chips with new ones. I have also installed the replacement Laser Bear Tactile switches into the original Neo Geo CD Pad, along with replacing one of the caps, and I have replaced the buttons in the Arcade Stick with Sanwa Buttons along with a new modern metal tactile joystick. And now I have the Ultimate AES essentially like new.

This was quite the project, replacing the PCB was a lot of work. I used all of my tools such as a Rework Station, low melt Chip Quick Solder Paste, Desoldering Gun, Solder Wick and tweezers for desoldering many of the parts carefully out of the original motherboard. I had to reposition some of the SMD chips aswell, as it wasn't aligned correctly the first time around. I also made a mistake with installing the dip chips in the wrong orientation. Luckily it was socketed and I can easily orientate it correctly. I also damaged the 100nf ceramic caps whilst trying to desolder it, so I instead ordered another 30 of those caps and also damaged the A1442 voltage regulator which I also had to replace. It was annoying since I meant waiting another week or so for the replacement parts to arrive costing me extra in the process, but it has now finally paid off. As for my Controller and Arcade Stick, I modded these years prior, the Arcade stick was also a lot of work, as I had trim and quite a bit out of the Arcade Stick shell to fit and bolt the replacement Joystick in, but it's now so much better than it once was, way more tactile and overall than the original.

I can now say I have the Ultimate Neo Geo AES. I might also pick up the upcoming AES Plus to compare it with. May have the AES Plus for the living room set up, and the original set up in my Game Room to a CRT.

I restored this Disc Read Error console to full working order. I started off by opening it up and dusting it. I had a Console5 Capacitor kit laying around, so I decided to Recap the motherboard along with a new CR2032 clock battery. I then installed my UART device to this console to PMAP tune and adjust the Laser. I went through a whole bunch of lasers that were simply bust. Some read CD's and only one of them read discs but I couldn't tune it past 3000 no matter what I tried and the other lasers didn't read discs at all.

I almost gave up hope until I found a perfectly working spare 400C laser that I had, that worked great. I was able to tune it even further through the PMAP program into the 2's by adjusting the potentiometers I kept at around 1200ohms and now it reads discs perfectly with instant boots on CD and DVD based games and it plays them perfectly. I then replaced the drive belt in the disc drive and regreased the rails so it opens and closes properly. I replaced some of the worn out ribbon cables like the power/reset and the controller FFC cable. And then I uninstalled the UART adapter and installed a Modbo 5 chip into this PS2 to fully region unlock this console to play PS1 and 2 games from any region.

It feels great to get a non working PS2 fully working again. To better preserve the laser in this, i installed a Free McBoot Memory Card into this with OPL and a 2tb HDD. Playing games off the HDD is a must at this point in the long run to prevent wear to the laser. I mainly use discs for casual play and use the internal storage for longer play sessions.