PS1/2 SCPH 39004 Matrix-how to use it?

[jawa_NKWii]

My friend gave me his old ps2 today. After some research, i found out it has a matrix modchip installed

How do I use it?
Can i play games off DVD-R/USB?

 

[Snomannen_kalle]

My friend gave me his old ps2 today. After some research, i found out it has a matrix modchip installed

How do I use it?
Can i play games off DVD-R/USB?

With a modchip, you can run burned games on the disc drive without further modifications. You can also run homebrew with the modchip, although I don't have any experience with this -- although I also have a matrix chip in my PS2, I prefer running homebrew via an FMCB memory card as this lets you run it from the PS2 menu (you can create one by burning wLaunchElf to a DVD and then running the installer from the first link from a USB). Google will tell you how to run homebrew using the chip if you prefer using it over FMCB. Using OPL, you can run games from USB, but note that the PS2 uses USB1.1, and thus loading times are longer and the cutscenes might stutter as a result.

Since you have a phat PS2, is recommend you to consider buying a PS2 network adapter and a hard drive -- still using OPL, this lets you install games to an internal HDD, which also has the added benefit of providing shorter loading times of games as the read speed is higher than for the disc drive. You can also play PS1 games through an emulator called POPStarter, but the compatibility isn't great (there should be a link on the thread I linked). Note that if you go this route, you should be aware that the OEM network adapters only supports old PATA/IDE drives. There are clones that support SATA drives, and although some people have no issues with them, others have reported problems, and you should proceed with caution. There are no known clones of the American network adapter (recognizable by its ethernet and telephone line ports), and this should be safe to use. There are mods out there to convert it to accept SATA drives, although I don't have any experience with this. The drive size limit is 2TB as far as I know. Not all drives will work either, so here's a compatibility list

 

[CoolMe]

My friend gave me his old ps2 today. After some research, i found out it has a matrix modchip installed

How do I use it?
Can i play games off DVD-R/USB?

The laser could be dead by this point, you can try your luck in cleaning the lense with some IPA and a q-tip, and test if it reads anything original/burned whatever. You can burn a DVD to install FreeMCboot on a PS2 memory card (if you don't have it installed already)...