Taking apart systems to address problems can be tricky at times. With SNES units you need to be very careful with the ejection mechanism's holder or it'll snap with little provocation and at least three vastly different hardware configurations. Fat PS2 units contain ribbon cables which can be prone to popping out. The original NES can be a complete headache as the tightness of the inner housing directly affects whether or not the cartridge slot's latch will catch and keep the game in the system.

The Playstation has none of these annoyances. It's so mind-numbingly convenient to crack open. After initially opening the system the top and bottom halves are practically self-contained. The lid and disc tray area form the top half. All of the buttons have tabs so unless the system has been really abused they will stay in place unless you actively want to take them out. Removing the power button is slightly more difficult due to its width versus the tab size and the presence of a spring that fits between the button and the console shell. The laser lens housing and general guts of the system are all neatly in the bottom half. It wasn't necessary to remove the plating over the circuit boards and such so I can't comment about those.

Compared to how irritating it was to dissect my original Playstation 2 after it died the Playstation is remarkably well thought-out. The main reason for taking apart this particular unit was because of a sticky cover latch which made the system unwilling to close. It also had brown goo gumming up its power button and a bit of hair wound around the motor... somehow. Either it was given up for its faulty latch or it tried to chew on its previous owner's head. The exposed motor housing surrendered its memento without incident, the power button is now cleaned up and the latch closes just fine after removing some old spider webbing. I don't know why the latch was working as poorly as it had been as the webs weren't unusually thick or anything. Some other errant former spider dwellings had to be removed from other areas.

This system is a model SCPH-5501. Any time I run across models made before having the parallel port removed I try to buy them. These old models are desirable as they are the most reliable for playing imported titles. Most games work fine using a swap disc but older titles like the original Japanese King's Field are more stubborn and require the use of a chip card plugged into the parallel slot. I like having backup systems around for the few titles the PS2 refuses to run, like Shadow Tower. I had read that the bios the PS2 uses are also used in the modified PSOne systems but I can't find the information anymore online.

I can't do anything complicated like rewiring or replacing capacitors but it's still fun to tinker with. If I can find any replacements it might be interesting to install new lasers or drives once they die. This is assuming the killer Playstation doesn't try to claim a new victim, though...