How to Refurbish a PSP

Sony’s PSP has been officially retired.  While the PSP-3000 is still in production and the E1000 is around for a while, although with a mono speaker and no wifi capabilities (probably not for long), the PSP phat and PSP Slim are no longer with us.  In stores, anyway.  However, if you are not one to throw away your old gaming systems, there’s really no need to.  People spend hours refurbishing Atari consoles, original Xbox consoles… you name it.  So why not your old PSP?  No one who has owned one can claim they didn’t give them some sort of joy.  And if you come across a busted up one online or on Craigslist or under a box of garbage in a buddy’s closet, this tutorial could provide you with some future enjoyment.

When I bought my Xbox 360, I sort of stopped using my Phat.  I gave it to my son, and in a short six months he took it from a flawless working machine to a scuffed paperweight.  The faceplate is scratched beyond belief, some of the buttons have stopped working, and the LCD is no longer showing a picture: just a backlight.  There are also several screws missing because (like me) he likes to tinker, and he got into my precision screwdriver set.

So, with very little research, I found a new LCD for under $20 on Amazon with free Prime shipping.  If you don’t have a Prime account on there, I highly recommend it.  There is nothing better than free 2-day FedEx shipping.  I also located a complete screw set for the PSP, a new faceplate, and a rubber contact button pad set. So I got everything I needed for a  grand total of $32.97, with free 2-day shipping.  You can get the same prices on eBay as well, but the caveat is that you’ll be waiting a few weeks for the goods to come from some city in China with twelve syllables in its name.  And shipping won’t be free.

Back to the PSP.  All the parts have arrived in fine order, so I proceed to take the PSP apart.  It’s relatively simple to take a faceplate off of a PSP Phat.  Six screws are all that it takes to hold it on.  For more info on the location of these screws and a more in-depth dismantling of the LCD components, check out my older article on How To Repair Your PSPs LCD Screen.  I guess you could call this tutorial a follow-up to that one, especially since it’s the same PSP.

Once the faceplate is off, it’s time to remove the LCD screen.  This is relatively simple, just put a small, flathead screwdriver under the snap on the bottom left corner and pull gently out and then up.  The front button plate should come off.  Swing it out of the way, and then put the screwdriver under the upper left corner of the LCD itself.  Pry slowly until it comes out, then do the same with the bottom left corner.  The screen should just lift out now.  Be careful, you’ve still got ribbons attached to the motherboard.

Put a fingernail or the tip of the flathead under the little locks that hold the two ribbons onto the motherboard.  The big one will lift up and away from you, the smaller one will lift toward you.  Once these are out, it’s as simple as going in reverse to put the new LCD in.

As long as you have everything apart, you might as well blow it out with some compressed air.  I didn’t have any on hand, as I used the last of it for the Noob RAM tutorial and I’m too lazy to go get more.  So I’ll probably be removing the faceplate later on and blowing it out.  This isn’t necessary, but I have children and animals in my house, so everything gets dirty.  I probably go through a couple cans of compressed air for all my electronics in a two week period.

Leave the protective plastic sticker on the new LCD, if it came with one, until you are getting ready to put the faceplate on.  Connect the ribbons in the same order that the old ones came out, make sure they are straight, and lock them in.  Gently snap the LCD into place.  Put the left side in first, then the right side.  It should slide right in there.

Now that the LCD is done, we can move on to the rubber contacts for the buttons.  The ones for the direction pad (Up, Down, Left, Right) and the action buttons (I’m not typing their names) are connected to the underside of the faceplate.  Make a note of their orientation.  Take a picture if you have to.  Just don’t mess it up or you won’t get everything to go back together properly when you reassemble.  Peel the old ones off easily, they have little holes that slide over plastic pins to keep them firmly in place.  Then it’s as easy as putting the new ones in.

So why am I replacing the contact pads on this PSP?  Because the pads for the top Left and Right buttons were lost by a mischievous kid with temporary access to a screwdriver.  The top button pads are just as easy to replace.  Wiggle the buttons until they come out, then grab a corner of each pad and pull them up and off.  The new ones go back in the same way the old ones came out.  The just ease the buttons back in the way you took them out.

That’s the worst of it right there, and there wasn’t even anything to it.  Even if all you had was a working motherboard, it’s still pretty easy to put a PSP phat together.  With a little patience and a little money, you can fix anything that goes wrong with one.  I replaced the motherboard in my wife’s PSP slim a few months back, and although it was a bit stressful, it wasn’t exactly rocket science.

Now it’s time to remove that screen protector, apply the new faceplate, and put the new screws in.  Always remember to use precision screwdrivers with these screws.  They strip easily, and if you use the wrong screwdriver it can lead to a lot of cursing and throwing things should you ever have to remove a stripped screw from a PSP.

Okay, so now the PSP is back together.  Charge it if need be, and test everything out.  Once you’re done, you’re done.  Play games, watch movies, surf the net if you feel so inclined.  And take pride that you did it yourself, and didn’t send it off to some cut-rate guy on the internet who overcharges.  Or worse, to the manufacturer.  It’s always more fulfilling to accomplish a repair yourself, if you have the skill to do it.