Ok, I just had the same exact problem happen to me last night. I tried to download the latest hourly and got the same problem. I managed to fix it by going back down to 7.1 by replacing the boot.firm, don't know if this helps at all but good luck my dude.
I went to a garage sell last saturday, and the lady had a PS2 for sale, but she had a sign on it that said "Nintendo -$50", had to laugh, almost bought but she didn't know if worked, and she didn't have controller or cables, so I passed.