Replay and PS2 Noise

[Suikoden]

Hello, long time no post. See this place has had a makeover since I last posted.

Haven't yet played Vol.2 as my TV died a few days after it arrived in the post (just after release) and it ended up staying in its box. Not being able to bring myself to buy a TV after convincing myself I'm somehow cursed, I still haven't bought myself a new one, even though I do have enough money to buy a decent 32" with some cash left over. But, with the release of Vol.3 just around the corner, I've decided to hijack the downstairs TV at nights with the plan being to replay Vol.1 and complete Vol.2 before Vol.3 arrives on my doorstep. Nothing will stop me completing the series now I've started.

I'm currently around 21 hours into replaying Vol. 1. Aside from needing to run up and downstairs for information constantly (wouldn't you know it, my printer isn't working...), everything is going well...apart from the noise my NTSC Slimline PS2 is making - Fairly loud clicking noises when reading the disc, which generally means after every few seconds of movement and during every camera angle change during cut-scenes, plus when doing stuff like loading/getting the bike out. I don't recall noticing this noise before, which is strange when I noticed it very quickly after restarting Vol.1 after months without gaming on it at all. I'm guessing I'm noticing it more now because my noisy PC fans aren't hiding it when I'm playing downstairs like they did when I used to play it upstairs.

Anyway, moving onto what I made this topic for:

1: Is it normal for Slimline PS2's to be fairly noisy when reading discs...constantly basically?
2: There are lots of loading times between zones in Rebirth. How far does the loading-ball-thing-on-the-loading-screens get before your game is able to...err...load a non-stroryline area?

[Shin Amakiir]

1) It depends how quiet the room is, really. If it's quiet and it's making quiet noises, its alright. But if it's really loud... Actually, come to think of it, mine does that once in a while, too. You might just have to clean it a little, but it should be alright.
2) For logging in, it gets just past the top left corner of the area picture. Maybe one or two more spaces. But for a cut-scene, mine goes off the screen. As soon as it's off, the area loads.

[Azure crow]

1) It depends how quiet the room is, really. If it's quiet and it's making quiet noises, its alright. But if it's really loud... Actually, come to think of it, mine does that once in a while, too. You might just have to clean it a little, but it should be alright.
2) For logging in, it gets just past the top left corner of the area picture. Maybe one or two more spaces. But for a cut-scene, mine goes off the screen. As soon as it's off, the area loads.

That circle in the right corner,when it shows a picture of the area your going to or the area words,is actually a 0-100% meter.
It will always only go to a certain point.
The effects moving around it,though,I'm not so sure of.

[Suikoden]

1) It depends how quiet the room is, really. If it's quiet and it's making quiet noises, its alright. But if it's really loud... Actually, come to think of it, mine does that once in a while, too. You might just have to clean it a little, but it should be alright.
2) For logging in, it gets just past the top left corner of the area picture. Maybe one or two more spaces. But for a cut-scene, mine goes off the screen. As soon as it's off, the area loads.

The room is near enough silent (aside from the speakers, obviously) when I'm playing. The noise is only really a problem when there's no music playing that covers the noise; loading scenes and emotional cut-scenes ('click-click--click' x10...way to get distracted from what's being said!) with no music usually being the only real problems. Shame there's a huge amount of music-less loading times included in GU...

Tried cleaning it with my laser cleaning disc, only to find it wouldn't work on NTSC stuff. Tried to hover all vents/around laser - That didn't help.

With regards to loading times, mine seem pretty normal...will double check when I play for a few hours later. Was a bit worried the disc reading noise meant it was having problems doing the job.

[Suikoden]

I think my problem is what is known in the HDD world as the 'Click of death.' It would be just my luck for my NTSC PS2 to have this issue...

Now that I have an idea what my problem is and I've been listening more and more to when the clicking occurs, I have another few questions I'd like someone nice to answer:

1: I've always noticed an 'invisible line' effect at one set spot when walking towards an area with a cut-scene, like there's one set point in the game that separates the upcoming cut-scene and the gameplay. Has anyone else ever noticed a split second freeze up when going towards a cut-scene, that you can go back and forth over and still get the freeze up before going to the cut-scene?

2: There's a few cut-scenes where I know this slight freeze up also happens during. The first is during the close-up of Pi's face during one of the cut-scenes at Moon Tree HQ, the other being during the close-up of Endrance and Haseo's faces after Alkaid informs Endrance that she's going to have their fight monitored. Both of these cut-scenes aren't listed under the ones you're allowed to re-watch. Has anyone else ever experienced this?

I always assumed since .hack//G.U. has 2 fights with MAJOR slowdowns and obviously wasn't perfected before release that these issues were at the fault of the game. However, the clicking always happening during these free ups leads me to believe that it is in fact my NTSC PS2.

Thanks in advance!

[Fist_Fighter]

I had the 'clicking sounds' coming from mine too and the sounds were pretty loud on mine.
I think its just the laser going too far up or down and tries to keep moving the same way.
One way to stop it is to open the cd lid and slowly and gently move the laser all the way up before you turn it on, worked for me and far as i can tell didn't effect the system at all.

I didn't get the problem till i accidentally dropped my system from about a foot and a half from the floor.

The 'invisible line' and the slight freeze at the cut-scenes i never had.

[Suikoden]

Hmm, can't actually see a way to move the laser upwards by simply opening the the CD lid and pulling it?

What sort of clicking did you have - 3-4 in sequence at set times (ignoring gameplay clicking) and sometimes a large number of clicks together?

I might've banged it slightly when moving my bedroom around and taking it around my mates, but I actually think the problem has always been there to an extent - The freeze-up before cut-scenes and during certain cut-scenes most certainly happened when I played it originally 4 months+ ago. I'll now if that's simply a problem with my disc when I play Vol. 2.

[Fist_Fighter]

Hmm, can't actually see a way to move the laser upwards by simply opening the the CD lid and pulling it?

What sort of clicking did you have - 3-4 in sequence at set times (ignoring gameplay clicking) and sometimes a large number of clicks together?

I might've banged it slightly when moving my bedroom around and taking it around my mates, but I actually think the problem has always been there to an extent - The freeze-up before cut-scenes and during certain cut-scenes most certainly happened when I played it originally 4 months+ ago. I'll now if that's simply a problem with my disc when I play Vol. 2.

I had the same clicking as you did.
And i did not mean unscrew the system or anything, just press the button the open button and push the laser all the way back (away from the disk holder).

[Suikoden]

Oh! Now I understand. I was trying to push it down before.

Pushing the laser back as far as it will go (so that the lens is still visible) didn't stop the noise, sadly. Guess it was a bit hopeful of me to expect something so simple to work. Thanks for giving me something to try, though.

Pretty sure the freezing mentioned above is to do with the clicking now - The close-up facial freeze-ups have happened on 3 different cut-scenes now when the clicking happens (seemingly before every piece of spoken dialogue), none of which are selectable from the re-watch list. Going on the lack of clicking during the re-watchable cut-scenes, it looks like there's no disc reading going on during those cut-scenes and plenty of disc reading going on during the cut-scenes not re-watch.

[Fist_Fighter]

Hmmm.....well other then slapping the bottom of the system during the clicking (not hard enough for the disk to come off the disk holder), i have nothing else other then asking Sony for help or getting a new system.
If you ask Sony for help, you have to go the site region where the system came from.

[Suikoden]

Hmmm.....well other then slapping the bottom of the system during the clicking (not hard enough for the disk to come off the disk holder), i have nothing else other then asking Sony for help or getting a new system.
If you ask Sony for help, you have to go the site region where the system came from.

Giving it a slap wouldn't be the best idea, it never does much good in the long run. Hate how the most basic 'repair techniques' never work for me...well, being 'rough' does sometimes work when my graphic card fan (PC) does it's usual lawnmower thing for the first 10-15 minutes my PC is on.

Doubt I'd get much out of Sony America, but that's the risk you take when you import. I now have to either wait for my PS2 to stop working and import another or import another now, neither option being great when you don't have much cash. I'm just hoping my PS2 doesn't get worse before I finish Vol. 3... The freezing-up on face close-ups seems to always happen on cut-scenes where there's disc reading going on, very annoying.

[Fist_Fighter]

Well if you manage to get them to think that you do live in the US, you can get info from them.
There's a few ways you could do this, one way is to make a new profile on the US region of there site with the profile saying you live in the US then ask for help, that is the best way of doing it though.
However if they ask for you to send in your system, the only way that will get them to fix it is to send it to someone in the US and have them send it to Sony or else they will keep it saying that you got the system from an 'illegal' source or something like that.

OR you can always just take it to a repair shop, they both do the same thing, clean it and put in a new laser.
If the repair shop asks where you got it, you just have to say you moved there from the US and brought the system with you.
You could always just get a new laser and put it in your self, however if your not careful, you will end up with a system without a laser.

Either way you do it, it will cost you something, unless you just ask for info on ways of fixing the system your self.

Other then those i will have to think of other ways of fixing it freely.

[Suikoden]

I've FINALLY managed to find the cut-scene with the worst of the freezing I noticed on Youtube - It's the game, not my PS2.

3.41-3.50 on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DoiH4KmSY4

This is good, it means the noise issue and freezing aren't linked.