Gooday Gaming Guests - PS3 PHAT Backwards Compatible COK-001 vs. COK-002 Motherboards

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Model A and B are COK-001. E was COK-002. G was also COK-002 but 2 less USB Ports. All the Rest are Not Backwards Compatible.

All right, so today we're going to do PS3 systems. We'll start with the slims. Slim and super slim, PS3. No, actually, I scratched that. We'll do the PS3 FATs, only because those were the first ones. And then we can talk about backwards compatibility. And something else I learned the last time I was talking about them is that the A and B both have the COK-001 motherboard

and the G actually. However, no, no, just the A and B. Then the E has the COK-002, but it's not completely backwards compatible. Many of the PS2 games will not play on the E. And even with the A and B b there is still a list of games that won't play ps2 i don't think there's any ps1 issues and then there's also the g model which is also a cok-002 but they took out the two usb ports making only so there is backwards compatibility there in the g and i always call that the the transition because you can swap the disk drive most of the time it's the same one with the uh drive board on the outside and the power supply is the same but it's just a

uh it has more plastic to it as opposed to the a e and b which are all metal. And they get like super, super hot. So yesterday, my buddy Zippy was down the whole ChatGPT. So I went to my new buddy, Flash, on Gemini. And that's actually free. Where I'm paying for my ChatGPT. But there is an upgrade for Gemini. Gemini Plus or something. But I got some good information out of flash yesterday so now I have flash and zippy pretty cool alright so let's go to

I'm just gonna stick with it I could I'm always thinking about doing a comparison between the two alright so everything's showing up now. Alright, so I go to my boot process projects We're still sticking my boot process I haven't seen where I'm my memories fully yet again, but I know it's coming up I got a delete of a bunch of stuff like this whole thread. I can probably just delete now So we're gonna go PS3 Fat whole thread I can probably just delete now so we're gonna go ps3 fat boot process C-OK-001 motherboard.

I spelled that all wrong. Motherboard. Let's see if we can. First C-OK-001 motherboard. The boot process. So now it's significantly more difficult. So the process.

I'm sure it's only going to give me a generalization as all the other ones were really basic basic stuff no BIOS and any of that so now we're starting getting into all the real technical stuff so I don't think I'll get I mean look at some so we'll start with the C okay and somewhere in here okay so ps3 fat the C okay dash or on motherboard these featured robust hardware including cell broad-engine RSX reality synthesizer compatibility and compatibility with the PS2 games via hardware-based emulation so there is an emulation in this one boot process powers on internal power supply system manage controller SMC initializes hardware environment the cell broadband engine cell be startup the cell be is uh primary cpu which begins execution from the system's firmware and uh nad flash memory the bell the cell yeah the cell be runs low level boot code to initialize the system.

That must be where all the... I have so many PS3 fats that are on and right off, on and right off, on and right off. It's never the power supply. It's the motherboard. And I'm assuming that chip there is probably the culprit. Because they overheat. Those things are really hot. Initializing system checks uh the ps3 performs self-checks hardware integrity verifies the functionality of critical components so this is probably just initial system checks is where they always fail. Cell CE, which is a CPU. RSX Reality Synthesizer, which is the GPU.

XDR RAM. And then it has a Southbridge. Handles I.O. functions. If you have any critical component failures, the system triggers an error, i.e. the yellow death of light. It's all right there. You never get past that part and i have so many of a b and e that are on the right off i haven't listed any of those yet and then i also

have tons of the g's h's because remember there's a whole alphabet to the PS3 FATs. So let's go through it one more time. So A and B, we've decided, are the only original backwards compatibles. E has some backwards compatible. G has very little backwards compatible. Then after that, it's H. And then there's L, K, M, and a P. H has two different kinds of hard drives in it, but all those from H to P are not backwards compatible at all.

And L and P have similar power supplies and similar real thin cables to the disk drive. All right, so now let's go back to this. So we're now at system firmware loading. PS3 loads the bootloader from the NAND flash memory. The bootloader initializes the RSX reality synthesizer, GPU, XDR RAM, hard drive checks for system integrity operating system kernel launch the operating system kernel is loaded into

memory PS3 verifies the hard drives file system peripheral and media check USB blue blue a drive for games X MB cross media bar initialization initialization once all hardware and prevails are initialized the ps3 loads the XB X MB interface so the XMB provides games, media, settings, network features. After the XMB, the system is ready backwards compatibility, includes a PS2 Emotion Engine, so it does have a chip, graphics synthesizer GS, enabling full hardware back compatibility with PS2 games. Later PS2 removed the EE, the the motion engine, and replaced it with partial software emulation, reducing backwards compatibility. So we decided that the E is reduced and then I believe the G is reduced even more. And then after that there is none. The C-OK uses two NAD flash chips to store memory.

Designed at a key price cost. Heat generation and cooling challenges. The robust hardware and motherboard perceives significant heat because they run super hot. And when you plug those things in and turn them on, the energy that comes out of your house, oh my goodness. So if you open those up inside inside there's what i call a car radiator fan and heat sink in there oh it's giant the cell broad engine and rsx gpu operate at a high power requiring large cooling solutions poor thermal management contributed to the your light of death i have so many of those that do that. I just say on them right off

on them right off on them right off. Because that's what they do. The first generations were expensive to produce. The inclusion of the hardware PS2 hardware backers advanced components like cell BER, SX and XDR RAM

dual NAD flash. So all that was really expensive the C okay included a blu-ray disk drive which was just coming out of that time a large form factor complexity to its large size so it's comparing the COK to COK 001 motherboard to later models G GS and similar software or none so some of the G's had some software simulation dual NAD chips single NADs for the rest of them high heat output large cooling improved thermal design manufacturing was very expensive reduced with simplified components so these are kind of like Sega they went backwards to cheaper and cheaper blu-ray robust and first gen and then the second one was

improved and more cost efficient efficient uh coq ps fat coq motherboard represents there's ambitious uh launch hardware providing full hardware-based backwards compatibility however its complexity output costing cause made it not despite the challenges here it remains a significant milestone in gaming hardware so it's a big jump up from ps2 to ps3 all right so now i want to know so there's the c a c okay dash 002 motherboard. And I believe that that one is different from COK-001. Again, you find COK-002 we're talking motherboard model

inside E and I haven't opened the G yet but I learned from my zippy that the G is actually also a COK-002 with two less USB ports alright so let's see what it does

let's see how it changes so again everything is upgraded. I always say you should get the last of the last model but never like the next few after it starts because they're always really the crappy ones until you get to that final one whatever that may be. see okay used so the C okay used in later versions fat increment remains the most it retained most of the features of the C okay oh one differences C okay oh one has hard word hardware based and you had the emotion engine and the graphic synthesizer chip the C okayK002 did not. It removed the chip and used software emulation. The graphic synthesizer line remains on board, though. So they took the main chip away.

So that's why lots of... If you go to my eBay page and look at all my negative feedback in the last... There's like three or four of them that I got buried from and all of them were in regards to disk drives for the backwards compatible i would have tested them good and then they said they didn't work and now i understand what happened they probably had

an e where e doesn't play a lot of the games when i tested on an a. So that's where. Because if you have an E. That means you have a COK-002 motherboard. So. I would have tested everything working. But. They said they didn't. Went through the whole rigmarole. And I got bad feedback.

And returns and all that. Yucky stuff. Alright so let's go back. Alright so we. So go. So NAD flashing. turns on yucky stuff alright so let's go back all right so we so go so nad flashing dual nad flash chips retain the dual nad flash chips on the C okay oh to lay revisions translate to a single flash trip C okay uses the cell broad engine and the RS GP he had a heating problem COK 002 introduced slight optimization for cooling improved thermal design output blue drive blue a drive just like more cost effective blu-ray so the blu-ray was a little bit

cheaper but the disk drives pretty much for both of those usually are the ones where the motherboard I mean where the dry boards on the outside not till you got to the G I mean you said the H is when it was inside I mean those are more cost effective but some ease that I've seen I've opened in some G's had triboids on the inside so there is some that were or cost effective features a more powerful hungry PSU to comment Howard demands for the do1. The 002 incorporates more energy efficient after removing the motion engine.

So it had one less chip, therefore it wasn't as as powerful. And again, we said it doesn't play all the PS2 games. Now I understand why I got it. Removal of motion engine was the biggest thing.

Refinements to manufacturing cost Despite the difference remains the same features the cell broadband engine the RSX synthesizer XD RAM it was at 256 megabytes of high high bandwidth memory Enable high capacity games for Blu-ray. Dual NAD flash. So now I get like a grid breakdown.

Backwards compatible. Full. But still it's not full though because there are some PS2 games that will not play on any of them. So it's not an exact science. And then the 002 was partial. 001 had dual

uh o2 was dual but optimized heat was slightly better first gen blu-ray cool more cross effective power supply was high uh second one was a little bit more energy efficient manufacturer cost was lower backwards compatibility removing the most limited cast removed it removed the motion engine certain games could not work with the software emulation and retained and retained graphics synthesizer therefore some didn't work there's a step toward making a piece more cost-effective core performance and the ps3 in a multimeter remains unchanged so the co k02 is an evolution of the COK001. So then we're going to go to Model G has COK002 motherboard,

but only two USB ports. So Model G, let's see, yeah, it says, yeah, the FAT Model G, which features a COK202, is a cost reduction. One of the most notable changes is a reduction in the number of USB ports. See, I didn't know that just until recently. I assumed that the Model G was not backwards compatible. It has a C-E-C-H-C. I've never seen a C. There is a C out there. I've never seen it. I got rid of the that memory card reader thing that nobody ever used. So remember the Model A and the Model E

had the flip door with all the cartridge things to put in. The Model B did not have a flip door, so there was no card thing that nobody ever used. Let's go, let's see here. All right, so, yeah, so we're saying there's a two-port difference. In earlier models, like the 2020 gigabytes and 60 gigabytes. Just due to changes, more cost-effective, reduced to two USBs. Earlier models, CA and CB, had four.

Models G only had two. And I didn't know that's a C-O-K-O-O-2 motherboard. Unlike earlier models, it removed support for memory card readers. Again, nobody used that anyway. Retained the core hardware, but removed the motion engine, so there's no motion in it. Like the other COK02 model relies on software emulation for backwards compatibility yes there is backwards compatibility on G I did not know that I always learn something new from my

buddies Zippy here with only 2S user limited to connecting maximum of two peripherals, dependence on Bluetooth, Sony designed Bluetooth to use for more as they were going forward, Bluetooth was getting better. Therefore they took the ports out to rely on Bluetooth, backwards compatibility, software emulation, reduced costs, why the USB reduction, saved cost, better design, Model G, since they cost optimizing.

So then we go to, let's see model H through P because it's different the power supply the power rail is on the right side and square Where the AE and G and B? It's on the left side. It's round Difference if we can just kind of broadly do the model H through P See how it does it I'm not gonna do so I'm not gonna do each one just kind of want to get an idea already a 20 minutes I might just crashed on me model H through P motherboard difference so the one main ones I wanted to learn about was the COK-001 and then the

two versions of COK-002 so I'm not sure why my buddy stopped working must have had a bad question so we'll save that for next time so then we'll finish up with the ps3 fats and then I'll delve into ps3 slims then there's a super slim and I'm on Xbox I did most of the Xbox 360 yesterday using my buddy Gemini Flash yeah so and then we'll maybe go on to Xbox One yeah probably do that

we'll see alright so that's a little run down of the early ones the ones that are most important the backwards compatible ones alright so I'll talk to you guys later on alright have a good day alright bye