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After Hours

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

By anthony-anthonysullivan July 28, 2007, 5:54 AM PDT

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Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Sony Playstation Portable

Sony Playstation Portable

Today we get to crack open the popular handheld, Sony PlayStation Portable. This was actually the first time I’d had my hands on one of these things and it seems like a very handy device.

It has built-in wireless support so you can browse the web in between games. You’ve probably noticed that many movies are released in a PSP format as well as DVD. The screen on this thing is beautiful.

But enough about how great it is. Lets see if we can break it.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Package contents

Package contents

Here is what you get in the basic PSP package. If you can’t clearly see what’s in the shot, you are looking at:

– 1x PSP
– 1x manual
– 1x battery
– 1x charging cable

I can tell you’re excited.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

I think this is the mouth

I think this is the mouth

Staring down the gaping maw of this ferocious beast I almost decided not to do it.

But being the brave soul that I am I decided to disassemble it anyway.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Screws

Screws

There are a total of 7 screws that prevent you from diving into this portable game machine in a very real way.

This screw was the most obvious among them, so I started here.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Shiny

Shiny

Man, that Sony logo really grabs the light!

I kept this shot mainly because of the cool flashy logo, but it also shows two more of the screws holding this thing together.

So far so good. I haven’t even had to work to get these out. My luck wouldn’t hold out.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Screws and battery enclosure.

Screws and battery enclosure.

I was, for a moment, perplexed as to what else was holding this thing together.

It was then I noticed the battery compartment and looked inside.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

We're in!

We're in!

After removing those last 4 screws, we’re in. The top fell off without any effort at all.

You can see the button pads on the left and right. At first I wasn’t sure what those metal circles were at the bottom of the screen, but those are button pads also.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Now the other side.

Now the other side.

The other side looks similar but isn’t quite as complex.

In the same place as the power switch on the other side, you see another switch. This turns the wifi on and off. I guess this is to save battery power.

The squarish metal piece there is the receiver for the analog stick input.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Looking a little deeper.

Looking a little deeper.

After a little fiddling I was able to get the circuit board off of the right side.

I would later find that I had disconnected a ribbon cable in doing this. Fortunately I was able to reattach this.

You can see the end sticking out from under the screen, just left of center in this shot.

Without this connected, the unit wouldn’t power up. It’s kind of important.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Left side again

Left side again

The circuit board on the left was easier and less destructive to remove.

It was also less exciting underneath.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Screen removed

Screen removed

Removing the screen was a real pain in the tail.

It required a good deal of prying and tugging. I later discovered that this was because the buttons at the bottom of the screen, at the top from this perspective, are on a piece of metal that I later removed. It had been glued on and didn’t want to move.

Once I got it off, it was a piece of cake getting the screen off and on.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Under the screen

Under the screen

The screen is attached via several ribbon cables that all run through the aluminum chassis you can see here.

I never really got under this as it was held in place by some strange snaps that I couldn’t get to without special tools.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Buttons removed

Buttons removed

In this shot you can see the button bar removed. It was a lot easier to get around once that was out of the way.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Disassembled?

Disassembled?

This was about as disassembled as I could get it. I’d have to break something to get any deeper into this puppy.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Gears... everyone likes gears...

Gears... everyone likes gears...

In this last shot of the disassembled PSP you can see the gears and mechanicals that allows the PSP to spin and read the game or video media.

As you can see, I was able to get the chassic moved a little to access this.

Cracking Open the Sony PlayStation Portable

Reassembled and working!

Reassembled and working!

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By anthony-anthonysullivan
ANTHONY SULLIVAN is a software developer working with primarily microsoft technologies. He has been developing web applications and software solutions for nearly 10 years using technologies such as C#, MSSQL, Oracle and ASP.NET. Currently he is a Sen
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