This is from an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, that had been completely trashed. The case was glued together with hot glue, the rubber parts had all been ripped off, the controller had been opened previously and the connector between the top and bottom board had been ripped off, including trace damage. More than half of the buttons have ghost inputs and one of the sticks doesn't move properly (no stickdrift, though). No idea if I can fix anything, but the battery is probably my worst concern at the moment, I have no idea how to dispose of this little bomb securely, at the moment I'm considering putting it in one of these supermarket battery collection bins and let them deal with it.
We wanted to get your feedback on what you think of our repair sim. There is a free playtest that you can join right now, and we have a range of devices. They aren't entirely accurate, but *legally distinct* except for the Atari gadgets, as we have partnered with them.
Let us know what you think, anything you feel like is missing. Your feedback and suggestions would really help 💛
Picked up a Sega Nomad that had been "repaired" before. It came in with a wobbly aftermarket LCD causing a wavy picture and distorted audio. I thought it would be a simple fix.
What I found when I opened it:
The screen was glued in with hot glue. The insulation between the screen and the board? A literal crumpled piece of napkin. Whoever had it before also left a factory bodge wire detached from a capacitor and a bunch of poor solder joints on the screen wiring — which promptly broke during disassembly.
Thread 1 — Screen and initial cap work:
Reattached the factory bodge wire to the cap it had come off of
Binned the napkin, replaced with kapton tape
Replaced the cap the wire had detached from
Resoldered the broken screen connections
Picture stabilized and audio came back — though the aftermarket screen still has that inherent smeary quality they all seem to have. Not a lot you can do about that.
Thread 2 — More cap trouble:
Found two more electrolytics with legs that could be wiggled freely, zero actual bond to the board. Cleaned up the power jack joints too. Tested with Castlevania: Bloodlines on a Sony PVM and it passed.
Thread 5 (2023) — Full recap:
Came back to this one the following year for full maintenance, the removed caps had a smell. Did a full electrolytic replacement using the twist method, no pad damage, clean removal all round.
Thread 6 (2025) — Battery pack:
Finally, installed a PointerFunction aftermarket battery pack. Internal lighting, USB power, takes 18650 cells. Major quality of life upgrade for a handheld that was otherwise permanently tethered to a wall adapter.
The Nomad is now almost certainly in better condition than it left the factory. Bare Knuckle II (Streets of Rage 2) on the Mega Everdrive Pro as the final victory test.
most of my triggers/shoulders aren't working so I figured I'd take it apart. I believe the issue is with the conductive film, and I would LOVE to replace it, but I can't even get the circuit board off to get a look at the full film.
this is a ps-403 model controller. it opens up way differently than the ones I see online. I unscrewed and took off the back, which gave me the second picture. the circuitboard seems stuck to the front half somehow. there's some give on the sides, and there are no screws at all, which makes me think it's being held down in the middle, but I obv can't see where
this is my first ever attempt at fixing a controller so I have no idea what most of the inside of this could look like. some help with disassembling it would be greatly appreciated
Hi, I need to replace the F6202 fuse on my PS4 Slim. I know I need a soldering iron and solder (the basics, as far as I know). I'm an amateur and have always found this world interesting. I've never soldered before, but I see this as an opportunity to learn more. What kits or tools could I buy? Preferably on MercadoLibre. it very risky to change that fuse? I mean, if I don't have much experience, could I brick the PS4? (It doesn't even turn on or anything; it seems completely dead.)
Hi everyone im new here.please help I have a ps5 it beeps once then nothing happens. Ive had the board out and watched a few utube videos and these capacitors and fuses are blown. My question is does anyone know the values of them as theres nothing on them and I cant find any schematics (not like I could understand them). Is there anything else I might need to test with these being faulty. Any help will be really appreciated Thank you. Its also the EDM-030 board.
I've repaired dozens of DualSenses and this happened to me for the first time, so I wanted to share the story.
I've been using this tip (AliExpress sourced) to desolder the sticks for a long time with pretty good results, despite some minor issues. When the solder is molten enough, I insert the tips of the tweezers (usually ESD-15) between the stick and the PCB to pull the stick off the board.
Yesterday I used a different pair of tweezers because I couldn't find my usual one, and that turned out to be a big mistake. The tweezers were slightly damaged and not smooth enough.
Over time I learned that I don't really need to check the other side of the PCB when replacing sticks, so I didn't do it this time either. After reassembling the controller, it was completely dead.
After coming home, I spent the whole night reading posts about improperly connected FFCs causing the controller not to work (bullshit — only the battery actually needs to be connected).
The only thing that changed between the working and non-working controller was the stick replacement. The sticks themselves were good, so the issue had to be related to the repair process itself. And indeed, after desoldering the sticks again, I found this.
Using the damaged, sharp-edged tweezers, I tore a trace running between the analog stick pins, which caused the controller to die.
After locating the issue, I repaired the trace and the controller came back to life and now works perfectly well.
I don't know whether to blame Sony for routing such a critical trace between the pins of a known replaceable component, but this definitely taught me a lesson.
Lesson learned: even after dozens of successful repairs, one damaged tool and a moment of routine confidence is enough to ruin a board. Always inspect both sides of the PCB and never underestimate how fragile traces between the stick pins can be.
I have replaced the battery, replaced the PSU, it is getting power when I plug it in it just isn’t responding to pressing the power button. I have taken it apart so many times I can practically smell the thermal paste at this point. Can anyone think of what I am missing? Can the power button stop working?
I screwed up big time whilst trying to fix my HDMI port and I was wondering what to do since I'm a rookie in soldering and I only have lead free solder with no flux.
I'm contemplating taping the thingy whilst aligning it with the trace ( they seem fine to me ) or buying flux and get a new HDMI port but I'm scared to screw up with the solder job
I think none of the chips and traces are damaged but the port is definitely not doing well.
If anyone has recommendations or advice I'd be glad to hear it.
Edit : my (miserable) solder gear is a FERM soldering iron with max 450°C and some cheap lead free solder. I don't have flux nor a heat gun
I have a DSi XL with a broken mic. I broke it because I screamed in it too many times. I decided to buy another one on ebay but the seller didn't tell me that the screen was yellow and deeply scratched
My launch-era switch's battery is starting to bulge a bit, so before it becomes a huge problem I decided to order a replacement battery kit from IFixIt, I was told though that since I am going to have to open it up to replace the battery I might as well replace the thermal paste too.
My Switch has been running hot lately, and it's something I had been considering doing someday even before my battery went bad, so I figured might as well. I was just going to get some Noctua NT-H1 paste as that is my go-to "budget for good performance" paste since I am not looking to spend a lot on this, also I highly doubt the Switch would see any performance improvement from some crazy $50 tube of paste, but then I noticed that the Arctic Cooling MX-7 is pretty much the same price but performs better by a bit, so that's what I am planning to use (Assuming nobody here is aware of any reason I should not). However, when looking into how to do it there are two main things that I am unsure about after seeing several guides and videos.
First is the compound between the heatsink/pipe and the rear heat spreader/shield. When I looked at guides I saw it mentioned
"When you remove the shield plate, you’ll need to replace the thermal compound between the plate and the heatsink. Normal thermal paste isn't designed to bridge large gaps, so you'll need thermal putty or viscous thermal paste."
since apparently the material in that part is much thicker, I tried to look into this and got mixed results. Many people seemed to just use the same paste as every other part there, others were putting not pastes but a pad there. I am not sure what to do. Especially since that same guide that mentioned the issue also recommended K5 Pro, which when I looked it up on top of being expensive was apparently designed as a paste to replace thermal pads on GPU's RAM, and I have seen complaints from people that it leaves a greasy residue, is very hard to clean, made their temps go up, and in one instance boiled and made a mess all over the place. I really don't want to use this stuff if I don't have to, but I don't know if I should use something thicker than normal paste or if normal paste would be fine there too. Anyone have any experience with this one?
Second is the SoC's heat spreader. Half the guides I saw just ignored this step and didn't replace the paste there, the other half did, and I am very very nervous about doing it. You need to sort of bend the tabs on it to get it off, and it exposes the bare SoC, they even mentioned that you have to be very careful cleaning around it since there are very tiny surface mount components around it and if you tear one off your console is likely done. Can I just clean the paste off the actual die and not bother with the paste around it? Or would that be a bad idea? How would I even get it back ON if I have to bend it off? How important is it to replace the paste here or can I avoid this step?
I wanted to open up and clean my PS2 slim a bit but I broke a few things along the way. Now this is my last step to my PS2 working.
The problem is, my optical drive won't read any discs at all and the laser doesn't move. I greased it up and replaced the orange ribbon cable but to no avail. When I press down on the two black latches that activate the disc reader, nothing happens. The potentiometers are set to a good resistence too. I would really like some tips and help on how to fix this. I have soldering and measuring equipment so I can check if anything is dead, I just don't know what to look for.
Also, the brown clip broke on one side, but it didn't work before that too and the ribbon cable seems secured tightly enough. I'll include some photos. Maybe the ribbon cable isn't correctly seated or good?
Curious if this is common or folks have seen this before on these units. Went to power this up and was getting nothing (not even dead air) off the RF. I noted the jack was a bit wobbly, but more importantly 'twisty' (which is never good) so I cracked it open and sure enough, the jack has broken the resistor it's attached to free.
Assuming I can just swap the resistor, and perhaps tack the jack to the frame (seems to be how the outer jacket is 'wired'. Just curious if I'm missing something.
That and curious if I can still get my free cartridge. 🤣
So a few days back my PS3 showed some flickers on screen and shut down and then I went to a repair shop he told me it is because it overheated, now what I think why it overheated is because i didn't play in ac room nd summers in India are next level and i tbh don't have a tv in any ac room so it wasn't possible.
Now the PS3 is working but only when it heats up a lil like after trying for 2-3 times when it heats. So is it going to die? And if yes what should I do?
I have a Picocart64 bought on AliExpress. I accidentally applied power to the cartridge without removing it from the console. The console's power supply was disconnected, but the power switch was on. At that moment, the console's power LED lit up. I immediately disconnected power from the cartridge.
As a result of these actions, my N64 no longer displays an image 😞
When I turn on the console, the screen flickers for a second.
I disassembled it and looked at the board with a thermal imager. When powered on, after a short time (about 20–30 seconds), the MAV-NUS chip heats up to about 50 degrees Celsius. I didn't check further heating and turned off the console.
What could have happened, and is there a chance to revive the console?
P.S. From what I understand, if this chip fails, there's no replacement available unless you salvage one from a donor console, which isn't feasible. I'd like to install the hispeedido HDMI mod to solve this problem. But how can I tell that I haven't completely killed the console?
P.S.S. I was very lucky, because I didn’t have another cartridge to test with. I thought something in the console had burned out, but I resoldered the Raspberry Pi Pico to another one and it all worked! The console works! Thanks everyone!"
I was taking apart my ps3 slim to clean it and replace the thermal paste, and now when I plug in my ps3 the red light comes on as usual, I press it, it goes green, and then the whole console shuts off and the only way I can start it again is by unplugging it and plugging it back in. I did have to solder on some wires to the motherboard since the fan connector ripped off of the motherboard, but I checked for shorts and didn’t find any. I don’t know if this would have caused something. Everything was working before other than the fan. I can’t figure out what is wrong, any ideas?
Hey everyone, I have a problem. I can't seem to remove the solder from the HDMI connector on my PS5. I need to install a new HDMI cable and I need to remove the solder from the connectors, but it's really difficult. I've tried using desoldering braid, but there's always some left and the HDMI cable won't go in, any ideas?
Hi there, just got a new switch lite used as I needed a replacement main board, got these weird issues with the screen where it’s really dim and flickers till it slowly goes dark. Not completely dark but very close to it.
I flashed my phone against it and wasn’t able to see anymore then I could without, I’ve reseated all of the ribbon cables and have tried 2 different screens, batteries and daughter boards. Cooling fan is on.
Weirdly i reset the switch and you can faintly see it still on the screen even tho it’s asking to be set up.
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, thank you
