Smokey Gp2x

[wiggythebrave]

Hi all. A friend of mine who recently bought a GP2X has done something rather silly and I was wondering if any of you fine people would happen to know if his console might be able to be saved.

Basically he's gone and plugged the only PSU he could find (without checking the voltage) that fitted and, well as you can probably guess.....all is not good.

Apparently smoke came out from the battery compartment, accompanied by a burning smell and the console no longer works.

Any suggestions (helpful ones please) on a course of action that might breathe life into his poor console once more. Or is it unfixable.

Thanks for reading.

 

[NoidZ]

Walk to the nearest trashcan, lay it in there (make sure one of your teardrops splash on the screen, just to make the moment better) and close the bin. You can lay a piece of paper if you can't handle it...

No serious, it's broke. Nothing to do about it, buy a new one.

 

[wiggythebrave]

Hum, what a bummer......he's only had it about two weeks.

 

[lubidog]

'A friend' eh?

Poor you!

 

[Vimacs]

its possible that you fried only the ltsk if you are lucky, if so its an "easy" repair.

 

[Squidge]

If smoke came from the battery compartment, I'd he's not just reversed the polarity, but given it far too much voltage too.

Best thing to do is open it up and post a picture. If the tracks have lept of the pcb, then there's not much you can do. Tell him to buy another and think next time before shoving random equipment into any hole it happens to fit!

 

[scarface]

Some times you just have to shove things in holes you see fit.

 

[geo12]

Same thing happened with my cradle (slightly more accidental tho), I was wondering if i could cannibalize the thing and maybe get one good USB port?

 

[coldfish]

It may be fixable, its difficult to tell with electronics; sometimes its not worth the effort, other-times its a $0.04 fix? Post a pic of the board.

At the very least there's some spare parts in there that could be salvaged. If you're going to bin it, send it to me instead.

 

[wiggythebrave]

'A friend' eh?

Poor you!

I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to say something like this. But seriously, mine is working fine thanks.

Thanks to everyone else who suggested it may be savable. I'll try to get it off him, and get some pictures of the board by the end of the week.

Cheers.

 

[aeSentinel]

It may be fixable, its difficult to tell with electronics; sometimes its not worth the effort, other-times its a $0.04 fix? Post a pic of the board.

At the very least there's some spare parts in there that could be salvaged. If you're going to bin it, send it to me instead.

Definately. I don't know how many times people have thrown out a Nintendo DS with a mere broken fuse. If you're lucky a trip to your local electronics store will see it working again.

 

[Quiest]

...think next time before shoving random equipment into any hole it happens to fit!

:lol:

 

[geo12]

Well, here's my burned out cradle. The part circled is burned, everything else looks okay thought. Maybe I could remove the EXT connector and try to craft a usb that way? Thanks for anyone attempting to help.

 

[coldfish]

It doesnt look to bad, hard to tell but it looks like its spat a SMD fuse? (where there's a blob of solder on the pads - lower circle), and/or maybe a toasted cap to the left?

You could try shorting those with some solder and give it the correct supply (correct polarity) and see what happens?

Anyone else have ideas, or a healthy cradle to compare?

Sometimes you get lucky, years ago I bought a batch of 10 LYNXs for $2ea, nearly all had faulty power sockets that just needed re-soldering, a dead 7" LCD that had a burnt SMD fuse, cost $0.20 to fix, seemingly dead Dreamcast with a loose fan connector...

 

[thumpgun]

someone has nicked my avatar, can you guess who...lol

 

[geo12]

It doesnt look to bad, hard to tell but it looks like its spat a SMD fuse? (where there's a blob of solder on the pads - lower circle), and/or maybe a toasted cap to the left?
You could try shorting those with some solder and give it the correct supply (correct polarity) and see what happens?

Thanks a lot Coldfis, although, I wouldn't really have any idea what I was doing (plus I don't own a soldering iron). Maybe you could explain it in mega noob language? Thanks for the suggestions though!

 

[coldfish]

someone has nicked my avatar, can you guess who...lol

Ahh, feck, arse! Sorry fatdad, it's the same one I use in an Amiga forum. You had it on these boards first, if you like I'll switch mine for something else?

btw, Gotta love the Jack!

 

[coldfish]

It doesnt look to bad, hard to tell but it looks like its spat a SMD fuse? (where there's a blob of solder on the pads - lower circle), and/or maybe a toasted cap to the left?
You could try shorting those with some solder and give it the correct supply (correct polarity) and see what happens?

Thanks a lot Coldfis, although, I wouldn't really have any idea what I was doing (plus I don't own a soldering iron). Maybe you could explain it in mega noob language? Thanks for the suggestions though!


Umm, I'll try, its really hard to work out what I'm looking at there ,so this is all guessing.

In the circle, there is a burn mark which seems to have come from the little box shaped thing to the left, which generally means it's the thing that got hot. A quick and dodgy fix/troubleshoot is to desolder it, power up the cradle and see if anything happens. Then you might try and find out the part specs, ie; a capacitor of value x, and source a replacement. Or if you dont care to do that, just solder the two pads the part was on together, power up and observe any new behavior.

Sometimes using this quick and dirty method you get new behavior, (better than nothing) indicating you could be onto something. Sometimes you get nothing, meaning theres a good chance the problem is more severe, like a blown capacitor/resistor/fuse that died -after- a chip got internally fried!

Its worth a try, if your only going to scrap the thing anyway...

hope this helps?

 

[thumpgun]

someone has nicked my avatar, can you guess who...lol

Ahh, feck, arse! Sorry fatdad, it's the same one I use in an Amiga forum. You had it on these boards first, if you like I'll switch mine for something else?

btw, Gotta love the Jack!

you can copy my blinking one then i will change it to something else...

 

[wiggythebrave]

Hi all,

I've managed to get my friends gp2x so here is the picture



I've never put a picture on a forum before so I hope it works.

Thanks in advance