Walked into a retro game shop in Austin and saw three PS3s with busted HDMI ports sitting on the shelf.

The guy behind the counter said people ship them in from all over the state because they don't want to bother soldering a new port themselves, has anyone here actually tried that fix on a slim model?

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer19928d ago

That sounds about right honestly, the hdmi port on the slims is a nightmare because they use a surface mount connector with those little pins that love to rip right off the board. Most people don't have a hot air station or steady enough hands to do it without lifting the traces. Even if you do get the port swapped, you gotta make sure the board isn't flexed at all during the process or you're gonna crack something else down the line. I've seen guys try it with a cheap soldering iron and end up bridging pins which just kills the hdmi controller entirely. The real trick nobody talks about is cleaning the flux off completely after because leftover residue can cause intermittent signal loss that drives you crazy troubleshooting. For the price of a shop doing it you're better off just hunting for a working used ps3.

the_vera28d ago

I gave it a shot on a slim last year and it went exactly like that... ripped a trace on the first try and had to run a jumper wire from the HDMI pin to a resistor somewhere on the board. Took me three hours and it still doesn't look pretty but at least it works now. Never again, I'll just buy another console if the port goes out.