Broken PSP?

[shroomie]

I had a friend bring me thier PSP (Phat 1001) the other day with an odd problem. Seems like someone pressed down too hard on the memory card and the slot now doesn't "push to eject", you have to kinda get deep in there and dig the memory card out now..

but here is what happens now, on normal boot (with memory card in or not in) the memory access light just blinks and gives a blank screen. I can get it to boot to the recovery menu (he has 5.50 GEN-D on there), so I can pandoraize the battery, but when I try to boot pandory with the MMS in, same thing, the mem. access light just blinks.

Is it possible they push it down hard enough on the memory slot to cause a short? I haven't had a chance to open it yet to see, but wanted to pick peoples brains first about it.

[MaxMouseDLL]

Is it possible they push it down hard enough on the memory slot to cause a short?

Yes, it is.. there will be damage to the MS socket (Plastic thing soldered to the board), you may be lucky and be able to repair it, or it may be that it's totalled and will need replacing.

It shouldn't be too hard to repair, you could go on eBay and buy a broken PSP1k series, completely wrecked ones go there quite cheap, and use it's memory stick socket/dock, or if you're lucky enough to get one with just a broken screen, remove his screen and repair the one you have bought :)

[shroomie]

Thnx for the advice, I'm going to pop it open this week and see what damage they did to the poor little thing, if the socket did come loose I'll be able to re-solder it no problem and cross my fingers that was the problem there.

Otherwise, looking into Ebay isnt a bad idea, but the bidding wars on broken "repairable" psp's are insane, looking at it I might just suggest to him to sell his on ebay and pick up a used one locally, 'cause looks like he could pick up $60USD to $80USD for a parts one which would pay for half if not more on buying the used one.

I just wanted to make sure this didnt sound like a firmware problem

[tbdawg]

This may be a little bit more of what your looking for if all you need is a MS slot.

Repair Parts Replacement Memory Stick Duo Slot for PSP 1000/2000/3000 (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.21995)

[MaxMouseDLL]

I just wanted to make sure this didnt sound like a firmware problem

Recovery menu will allow you access as that's loaded before everything else, including (it seems) memory stick drivers, have you tried accessing the memory stick from the recovery menu? it'll probably crash or simply not work.

Since you've tried pandora / MMS (That's as low as you can go) it does indicate a hardware issue.