Sony PSP Mod & PSP Hacks Forums - View Single Post - Slim PSP Screen won't display anything but psp still works

Intergalactic Captain · 08-05-2008, 03:57 PM

Well, you better hope it's a loose cable...Otherwise, it's a popped solder ball falling victim to thermal flex - Imagine your psp motherboard. On it sit the various chips that serve its functions - These chips aren't attached by pins, rather by hundreds of tiny balls of solder. As you can probably imagine, the chips are generally more rigid than your motherboard...As the motherboard warms up from use, the motherboard flexes a tiny bit in various directions - If a solder ball is popped and in an area victim to flex, it will lose it's connection to the motherboard...If this is an important pin, you'll see a problem...

I only suggest this as you said that it was fine when you pulled it off the charger (ie, it was sitting there unused and relatively cold for some period of time), but on the next shot the screen would not work (ie, it may have warmed up and "flexed" a solder ball off the board)...This is a very common problem with modern electronics, some famous examples are the loose GPU's on G3 iBooks, Thinkpad T40's, and Xbox 360's - Blame the environmentalists...Lead-based solder could handle motherboard flex, but the federally-mandated replacements are too rigid and brittle for it.

...Before you do anything, pop it open and check everything. It's pretty easy to take the faceplate off and check the connections - There's no real way to know without popping it open and taking a look. I'm betting on a loose cable (considering it IS from ebay), but loose chips are also a real possibility.

08-05-2008, 03:57 PM	#14 (permalink)
Intergalactic Captain Senior Member PSP Mad Hacker Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 500	Slim PSP Screen won't display anything but psp still works Well, you better hope it's a loose cable...Otherwise, it's a popped solder ball falling victim to thermal flex - Imagine your psp motherboard. On it sit the various chips that serve its functions - These chips aren't attached by pins, rather by hundreds of tiny balls of solder. As you can probably imagine, the chips are generally more rigid than your motherboard...As the motherboard warms up from use, the motherboard flexes a tiny bit in various directions - If a solder ball is popped and in an area victim to flex, it will lose it's connection to the motherboard...If this is an important pin, you'll see a problem... I only suggest this as you said that it was fine when you pulled it off the charger (ie, it was sitting there unused and relatively cold for some period of time), but on the next shot the screen would not work (ie, it may have warmed up and "flexed" a solder ball off the board)...This is a very common problem with modern electronics, some famous examples are the loose GPU's on G3 iBooks, Thinkpad T40's, and Xbox 360's - Blame the environmentalists...Lead-based solder could handle motherboard flex, but the federally-mandated replacements are too rigid and brittle for it. ...Before you do anything, pop it open and check everything. It's pretty easy to take the faceplate off and check the connections - There's no real way to know without popping it open and taking a look. I'm betting on a loose cable (considering it IS from ebay), but loose chips are also a real possibility. __________________ If you see me running, try to keep up.