Philips VAD 6011/21 ribbon cable connection

[arfows]

Recently had two Philips DVD drives stop reading discs so I opened them up, disconnected all of the internal ribbon cables so I could try and pot tweak.  When I reassembled them and powered it up again, I got the error 12 code.  I've tested the IDE cable as currently connected with other DVD drives and it works fine so its not the cable or connection so I figure it has to be something I did when reconnecting the three internal DVD ribbon cables and the internal power cable.  I was able to boot into an XBOX that had the DVD drive check bypassed via Cerbios so I could access UnleashX to check system information / DVD information.  The DVD region showed up but every other DVD category just showed an italic "I". 

Does anybody have a pic of the bottom side of a Philips VAD 6011/21 (POS) DVD mobo that shows its internal DVD ribbon connections properly seated / how far the ribbon cables go in....or maybe have any other ideas as to the reason why I'm suddenly popping Error 12?  (again, its not an ide cable connection issue, that has been ruled out).

Thanks!

 

[FrostyMaGee]

I don’t have one on hand for a picture but I’ll keep an eye out. I do remember this with a Phillips that gave me odd connection problems years ago. I ended up reflowing the solder joints for the 40 pin connector on the drive pcb. It worked after that. Not sure if that’s your problem but thought I’d mention it nonetheless. 

[KaosEngineer]

The images in this old Wayback Machine llamma.com archived tutorial may help.  The images are not the best quality.

Phillips Xbox DVD Complete Tear Down (archive.org)

[Shmingers]

13 hours ago, arfows said:

Does anybody have a pic of the bottom side of a Philips VAD 6011/21 (POS) DVD mobo that shows its internal DVD ribbon connections properly seated / how far the ribbon cables go in....

Hey, I recently had two Philips drives go bad on me, so in working on them I can confirm the ribbon cables push in farther than you think. Just gently push a bit more. You'll feel it when they seat properly.

[arfows]

thanks.  a couple of the ribbons from the llama site i could see clearly enough to verify I had the ribbons in far enough...the only one I couldn't see well enough was the one closest to the front of the drive.  Still triggering the error 12 though.  The solder joints look good so that doesn't appear to be the problem.  Anyone else have ideas why these drives are suddenly triggering the error?

Edited December 21, 2023 by arfows
clarity

[FrostyMaGee]

4 minutes ago, arfows said:

thanks.  a couple of the ribbons from the llama site i could see clearly enough to verify I had the ribbons in far enough...the only one I couldn't see well enough was the one closest to the front of the drive.  Still triggering the error 12 though.  The solder joints look good so that doesn't appear to be the problem.  Anyone else have ideas why these drives are suddenly triggering the error?

Hmm..SMDs maybe? That’s weird it just stopped working. 

[Bowlsnapper]

Resistor arrays? Maybe there is a slight failure with the mobo that the Phillips cannot tolerate, but other drives can. Passives are starting to reach EOL on this hardware and all sorts of untraceable problems are starting to occur. All these mobos are starting to go outta wack from degrading circuits in random locations resulting in errant voltages, amperages and frequencies. I KNOW it.

[FrostyMaGee]

5 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Resistor arrays? Maybe there is a slight failure with the mobo that the Phillips cannot tolerate, but other drives can. Passives are starting to reach EOL on this hardware and all sorts of untraceable problems are starting to occur. All these mobos are starting to go outta wack from degrading circuits in random locations resulting in errant voltages, amperages and frequencies. I KNOW it.

Starting to reach EOL? I’d say well past probably. Lol. Just had to dig at you for a sec Bowl.  

[Bowlsnapper]

9 hours ago, FrostyMaGee said:

Starting to reach EOL? I’d say well past probably. Lol. Just had to dig at you for a sec Bowl.  

Oh I don't mean the actual consoles. I mean the parts that are in them. Those are good for a couple decades usually. Or maybe 10 years is when you start to see failures. But when you see consoles fragging for no apparent reason, or just not turning on at all, or sitting at a coma screen, Like when the TSOP starts to go bad, It takes a while to get to that point. Little failures start happening all over the board and sometimes we don't see it until something cataclysmic happens. A console can still boot with certain little microrails being slightly out of spec. But once it reaches a certain point, stuff stops working depending on where the failures are. Really I'm talking about the EOL of SMD components. The Xbox has been obsolete for several years obviously.

[Shmingers]

On 12/20/2023 at 7:50 AM, arfows said:

...The DVD region showed up but every other DVD category just showed an italic "I"...

Hi arfows, sorry to dig this thread up, but I just tested the Philips drive I was having problems with in my thread in a modded environment and got the same thing. I'm pretty sure we're both facing the same problem, a borked board in the drive. I bet everything else is fine in yours as well.

On 12/21/2023 at 3:25 PM, Bowlsnapper said:

...or sitting at a coma screen, Like when the TSOP starts to go bad, It takes a while to get to that point...

Bowl I just got my first coma unit this year. Had heard of the problem but hadn't seen it before. Sadly, I got the 1.1 working in 256k mode, then got greedy and tried to flash a 1 meg TSOP. Of course it failed at 25%...not making that mistake again. 

Edited December 30, 2023 by Shmingers

[Bowlsnapper]

3 hours ago, Shmingers said:

Hi arfows, sorry to dig this thread up, but I just tested the Philips drive I was having problems with in my thread in a modded environment and got the same thing. I'm pretty sure we're both facing the same problem, a borked board in the drive. I bet everything else is fine in yours as well.

Bowl I just got my first coma unit this year. Had heard of the problem but hadn't seen it before. Sadly, I got the 1.1 working in 256k mode, then got greedy and tried to flash a 1 meg TSOP. Of course it failed at 25%...not making that mistake again. 

Heh, Well I'm impressed you got it to boot by splitting the TSOP, I've yet to do that. Using the LPC will obviously work too... Maybe you can solder a new TSOP onto the board?

[Shmingers]

On 12/30/2023 at 3:18 PM, Bowlsnapper said:

Heh, Well I'm impressed you got it to boot by splitting the TSOP, I've yet to do that. Using the LPC will obviously work too... Maybe you can solder a new TSOP onto the board?

Splitting the TSOP is surprisingly simple, and when it works you feel like a miracle worker.    I've already modchipped that unit, and I think I might just drop the dodgy DVD drive and make it an all-digital edition. lol