I'd really appreciate it if you guys could help me out with an issue I'm having...
I recently bought an NTSC PS1 console from eBay (SCPH-5501). After switching the American power supply out for a 240v European one, I briefly tested it and all seemed OK with the one game I tested it with. A few weeks later, I wanted to thoroughly test it before I installed a Mayumi V4 modchip and the PSIO switchboard chip. This time, games would boot up with weird graphical bugs on their initial splash screens (I mainly tested Iron & Blood: Warriors of Ravenloft as I only have 2 NTSC games on disc).
I can only describe it as being scrambled looking, various parts of the screen looked distorted and stretched, colors were mashed up etc... Evidently this game showed the exact same visual issue every time the bug occurred. More worrying however was the PS1 boot screen showed an occasional random bug that looked sort of like this: (however the graphical bug here would be different each time)
![Image](https://i3.ytimg.com/vi/24uZCPGnKtA/mqdefault.jpg)
I decided to try replacing the laser, which I swapped out for a PSone laser which I knew worked (with a ribbon cable extension I bought off eBay, that arrived today). All seemed OK the first few boots but then I saw the bug come back, so I know it's most likely not the laser. It's very random and only happens occasionally. I just tried rebooting about 20 times and couldn't get it to show the bug for my camera.
![Crying :crying](./images/smilies/crying/yellow.gif)
Do you think this this a sign that the PS mainboard is bad or going bad? I don't want to install the 2 chips on the board only to have to replace it down the line.....any advice would be greatly appreciated!
![Praise :praise](./images/smilies/bow/blue.gif)