Ok so here's everything I've tried so far and what symptoms I'm getting: I was having MAJOR trouble getting my scph-77001 to read any kind of disc, getting a successful read roughly 1/25-30 tries/boots. Tried adjusting pots in ~25Ω increments, both up and down in regards to the stated factory settings (850 for the dvd, 1220 for cd..right?). No difference. Changed around with 3 different boards, 4 optical drives, and numerous ribbon cables. One board got abused a little too much so I'm down...
PS2 slim no work! Much sad...
PS2 slim no work! Much sad...