Help fixing broken 9000-series Playstation

[jdmlight]

So I started to clean up my work area in the basement, and I ran across this 9000-series Playstation that I bought at MGC 2010. (IIRC it was $1-2 in "untested" condition.) It doesn't work. The power supply works, the green LED turns on, and when you hit the power button my PSOne screen flickers (like it does whenever it detects a signal). After some poking around (literally), I found that if I push down on the chip in the following picture, it works (it boots and loads my test game, Tomb Raider).
(click for ginormous picture)

Anyone know what this chip is? My guess is that it's got some bad solder joints that make contact when I push down on it. How would I go about resoldering it? The pins are awfully small...

[Bino Gas]

Heat gun.

[Haunted360]

Heat gun.

NEVER, Heatgun a chip that was never designed to take high temperatures. And NEVER, Heatgun a SMD. Only BGA's are what you can re-flow.


To fix it is dead easy. Just grab a very fined tip soldering iron, Flux and heat that pin with the small dab of Flux on it (with moderate soldering pressure), so that it will re-attach to the PS1 Main/motherboard. When it has, grab your Soldering Tool (needle or something) to hold the Pin down while it cools. If necessary (I doubt), add the tiniest amount of solder where the pin ends if it fails the first time with a bit more Flux.

Also, that chip is the Graphics (I am 97% sure). The one next to it is the CPU (R3000/R3051).


Thanks.

[hailrazer]

Weird , I have used a heat gun on Smd before with no problems.

Heat it up till you see the solder flow, then let it cool for about 20 minutes.

Fixed a ton of problem chips with that technique.

[jdmlight]

Heat gun.

NEVER, Heatgun a chip that was never designed to take high temperatures. And NEVER, Heatgun a SMD. Only BGA's are what you can re-flow.


To fix it is dead easy. Just grab a very fined tip soldering iron, Flux and heat that pin with the small dab of Flux on it (with moderate soldering pressure), so that it will re-attach to the PS1 Main/motherboard. When it has, grab your Soldering Tool (needle or something) to hold the Pin down while it cools. If necessary (I doubt), add the tiniest amount of solder where the pin ends if it fails the first time with a bit more Flux.

Also, that chip is the Graphics (I am 97% sure). The one next to it is the CPU (R3000/R3051).

Eeetz aliiive! Yeah I just ended up applying flux and resoldering the pins. Works like a charm.

[Bino Gas]

Using a heat gun has worked for me in the past.
Glad you could get it to work, John.

[Haunted360]

Heat gun.

NEVER, Heatgun a chip that was never designed to take high temperatures. And NEVER, Heatgun a SMD. Only BGA's are what you can re-flow.


To fix it is dead easy. Just grab a very fined tip soldering iron, Flux and heat that pin with the small dab of Flux on it (with moderate soldering pressure), so that it will re-attach to the PS1 Main/motherboard. When it has, grab your Soldering Tool (needle or something) to hold the Pin down while it cools. If necessary (I doubt), add the tiniest amount of solder where the pin ends if it fails the first time with a bit more Flux.

Also, that chip is the Graphics (I am 97% sure). The one next to it is the CPU (R3000/R3051).

Eeetz aliiive! Yeah I just ended up applying flux and resoldering the pins. Works like a charm.

Your welcome

Weird , I have used a heat gun on Smd before with no problems.

Heat it up till you see the solder flow, then let it cool for about 20 minutes.

Fixed a ton of problem chips with that technique.

Yea well, your chips life has been probably shortened, as well as damaging a few other things too...

[hailrazer]

Yea well, your chips life has been probably shortened, as well as damaging a few other things too...

Solder melts at around 300 degrees. If you melt the solder with a solder iron you will be heating the pins and part of the chip up to around 300 degrees. If you heat it wirh a heat gun you will be doing the same thing.

Yes you will be heating more of the chip with a heat gun, but it is for such a short period of time it won't hurt anything.

It's done all the time.

[Haunted360]

Yea well, your chips life has been probably shortened, as well as damaging a few other things too...

Solder melts at around 300 degrees. If you melt the solder with a solder iron you will be heating the pins and part of the chip up to around 300 degrees. If you heat it wirh a heat gun you will be doing the same thing.

Yes you will be heating more of the chip with a heat gun, but it is for such a short period of time it won't hurt anything.

It's done all the time.

Yea but your only heating a little Pin. Not the entire + center of the chip. And if not insulated, then everything else too. There is also the risk of warping the board, and bumping it. Thus then moving the tiny resistors and transistors.

And with SMD's, the pins need to be pressed back into the MoBo to make contact. You can't do that with a Heatgun! Thats why BGA's need a Heatgun. Not a Soldering Iron...

Anyway, it is fixed now for him and what ever works for you is your method of fixing stuff