[spedmetal]

I know I got into this thread late but it for sure sound like another crappy V4 laser issue to me. I have had many many situations like this and the V4. Also what Tyler said about making a DVD-R movie back up to see if your laser will even read DVD-r's is true, however this doesn't mean that a PS2 dvd game will boot. This is a good way to check, when booting a PS2 original silver game(dvd based) does your ps2 go to the browser screen first before finally booting? If so then you for sure have a tired laser and this can throw off the timing of the mod chip resulting in the RSOD screen (the please insert a PS2 blah blah screen). Also it doesn't sound like you have tried any DVD-r back ups and you did mention rip's, the magic 3.1 is known to have trouble with some rips. My final recommendation would be to sell your V4 on like ebay or something and buy a new PS2 with a good laser because if you buy a laser for your V4 your looking at spending $40-$50 for it and it wont be one of the newer model lasers that they put in the V5 and latter machines which work much better. Even if you do install a new laser like I said and get it to work good you will have to install an older model even if its brand new just to have it do the same thing to you down the road once again. OK I think I have said enough hope this helps.