Miquel vs. Playstation

Miquel vs. Playstation

My son Miquel is quite an athlete. Ever since I can remember, he could pick up, kick, smash, toss, any ball, paddle, racquet, bat, and Frisbee and do it with God given natural abilities. He always looked like one of those “naturals’ you hear spoke of. He does it well and he does it all with flair. I often tease him to stick with athletics, because when it comes to electronics, this realm often disappoints him.

The computer world has not been as kind to him. He is the one that will likely spend a long time typing an email, only to have the connection drop when hitting send. He is the one who tries download something and then it never works. On the few occasions he gets to the computer to chat with friends, more often than not, things
have always gone WRONG. So often he just screams in frustration, “Computers don’t like me! I don’t like them!”

Now, he DOES like Playstation. He loves all the sports, racing, and shooting games. Like any young man his age, this is high entertainment. Quite possibly he doesn’t get to play as often as he likes, but when he does, he seems to do so with all his being. I can hear him shouting to the screen and moving the paddles with quickness and finesse.

Recent days, some of his games weren’t playing right, and finally it gave up all together. No CD’s or DVD’s would play either. Repairs, he told me, ran around $90 at this one place he knew.

Ninety dollars is quite a stretch for me, and led me to look for alternatives. First, I googled PlayStation repair and checked for places in our state. That didn’t go to well. The same google search though, led me to a forum that discussed Playstation 2 repairs, and fellows boasting how easy it was. One even offered to do it for $30, if we shipped it to California, he promised a 2-7 day return. Next, was yet another forum, where a person invited everyone to his yahoo chat, and he said he was able to often help people in a chat online. As I am reading all these things, I am getting a feeling of empowerment, that possibly, we don’t need a $90 PlayStation repair. So I went to Amazon. Surely they have a book on the subject! They did. For $25, even a “dummy” could repair PlayStation problems. As I read through the recommendations of the book, one person said. “Even though it was a very good book, don’t buy it, its just TOO easy to fix it yourself” and this person added that there were many sites on the web that could offer self – help.

That was all I needed to search for sites (with photos) with step by step instructions on how to repair Playstations. Once I found what I considered an adequate site to help Miquel fix his game, I printed it, and handed him the pages, nicely stapled, and announced, “We don’t need to pay $90, you can do it yourself.” His first reaction was like,”Now what is my mama getting me into? Doesn’t she know my history with electronics?”

Not long after handing him the instructions however, did we all collect the tools he would need and he got started. Miquel was diligent and persistent. Opening the system up was for most of us, a scary process.(The game opened up is pictured here on this blog) I felt a little more bold than he did, however, having opened up my PC to clean it and such. Seemed like a similar exercise to me. He worked till he couldn’t anymore into the night. The next day, today, however, he achieved success. After adjusting the lens, about 100 attempts to get it right, he got every Playstation and DVD to work. We both thought and said the same thing, “you
watch, the moment we close this baby up, put all the screws back in, and close the lid, it won’t work.” And we had to nod in agreement, after all, with Miquel’s track record, it seemed highly possible.

Well, we were nearly right. Only ONE out of the whole bunch of games didn’t work. BUT the rest DID work. However, unfortunately, it was the ONE game he had WANTED to play! I consoled him with going to Blockbuster to at least rent a different game, which pleased him. As we went to the shop to rent the game, I said to him, and feeling all the geek I seem to be becoming to be, I climbed into the car , “You know…you can still tweak the settings on that lens, you can get that game to work…”

I suppose my voice faded, as Miquel had had enough of electronics talk for now, but he seemed at least slightly satisfied, he may have lost a battle, but he definitely hadn’t lost the war!

* Edit: That night Miquel got the game he wanted to work, to actually function! 100% success!