An attempt was done on the PSOne...

 Well, I looked at the backlog post I posted the other day and attempted to do one of the mods: The PSOne modchip cleanup.

Opened it up and was greeted to this:

Now, in my defense, I was a rookie modder at the time. I had a really worn soldering iron (not a station, like I do now) and soldering to small points were murder for me. This was "I soldered it in, it works" style of modding I did, so after testing it, I closed it up and called it good.

My OCD (now) got the better of me. So I opened it up, desoldered the wires, and redid my wire work. 15 minutes or so of work yielded this:

Routed the wires for a cleaner look than before. Secured the chip down with double sided foam tape. I'm OK with this.

My original power supply for the PSOne died, so I tried using something comparable to it. It got power, but the amperage was low, so it wouldn't spin a disc. I tried cobbling another adapter up... Ended up making some components literally smoking on the main board. 

...

I'm gonna sideline this for now. I don't think the modchip is causing it, but I'm not taking it up to chance. I will eventually order another power supply for it, as well as ask around for what are the parts that started smoking and start seeking parts for that.

In the meantime, I took a look at my 1001 PSX that I was planning on using to install an ODE mod to it (similar to the GC Loader). I wanted to open it up to clean up before I get the ODE. I was opened it up and was greeted with this:

I've had this 1001 for who know how long, never knew it was modded. I got it from a friend a long time ago when I still lived on Maui. It was a dead laser issue and even after tweaking the potentiometers, I sidelined it (back on Maui) up until maybe 2012 or so? Bringing it back with me, I planned on ordering a new laser for it until learning that you could potentially use a laser assembly from another PSX or even a PSOne (which was said to be the better one to look for). I did find one at a GW, so I bought it and used that one to swap out in this PSX. After some un-tweaking of the potentiometers, I got it back to a usable point.

Never tried using a backup or import game on it because I didn't think it was modded...oh well. I removed this old mod and prepared it for a possible future of ODE goodness.