Trying to FIX 2x STEAM LINKS with No Power (GAME STREAMERS) 

There's nothing like stubborn determination for getting answers and solving problems! Your work may save a lot of people a lot of work of their own. Even if it's not monetarily worth the effort to repair a cheap item, the knowledge learned by doing is absolutely PRICELESS! Well done, Vince! 👍👍

With BGAs, as long as you do a clean lift and don't add or take away solder from a pad, you should be able to reflow it back just fine. You could practice with the faulty boards since you now know a bypass for the voltage regulator.

Fantastic video! Amazing how you find these faults. You determination is unrivaled.

Nice fault finding, love the variety of devices you fix in this channel :) Never used this kind of game streamer, so good way to learn about them.

What an interesting little board repair. You did a great job editing this video. Thank you for your amazing content Vince.

Merry Xmas to you and the family when it comes Vince. thanks for all the awesome trying to fix videos over the last year 👍

I think it's a reset/power monitor switch. It's function is to distribute voltages in the correct order and monitor voltages. If bridging it works, it will probably keep on working, although power-up timing will not be according to spec.

A fan from the USA loving the content variety of fix it videos.

I know this has already been mentioned, but I will state it as well. Best guess power management IC (PMIC), voltage controller, or load driver. Potentially dual input dual out, possiblity the ability to invert (polarity) of at least one of the outputs. Yes it may have either a reference voltage leg or feedback circuit. If a load controller the ability to soft start limiting inrush current plus supply voltage to control circuitry, power supply input, and a voltage output to the load. The thing to keep in mind are these types of ICs have the capacity to not just regulate a voltage, but ability to sense over current and over voltage conditions and shunt the output to ground to save other SMDs (or ICs) on the PCB. Some even have the ability to sense over temp conditions and do the same thing. As an example, transistors are extremely current sensitive devices... So if you bodge to bypass this IC and an over current condition is presented (such as a capacitor shorting to ground or leaky and acting more like a resistor) it is highly likely you'll burn out other components as well such as a transistors. Again just one example there are many. Your gut served you well in this regard with assessing whether or not a bodge is an appropriate fix. I tried a bit to find a pin configuration sub, but without having the board in front of me and scoping each pin there are too many variations to make a guess. However, if you have the time I would suggest starting with looking up LM Series or TPS Series or MP Series semiconductors in the QFN-12 package type. The closes things I could find, without more data, that were at least pin arranged equal (most likely not pin for pin compatible or even the right IC) are MP5073GG-P, MP5087GG-Z, MP5087GG-P, MP5087AGG-P, and MP5077GG-Z load drivers.

Always good to watch your videos, you are good at problem-solving and very persistent.. a couple of things I would have done differently from the start. An amp meter or power supply to see how much current the board was drawing, a thermal camera or IPA to see if any of those chips around the power socket were getting hot. keep up the good work

'thrill of the chase' - that's what makes this a great channel!

4:22 well I'm more than proud to be part of the small percentage of female/non-male viewers :) I've always been a huge fan of tech stuff as a whole (hell, I'm pursuing a degree in CS!) and even though I know I'm consistently a minority in the tech world I still enjoy it nonetheless

Woman here too! Love your content. How many electrical items end up in a skip that just needed a small repair?

Really interesting mate and very enjoyable. I laughed at you saying “the thrill of the chase” 😅😂 awesome

Thank you so much for posting this. I finally have closure

Hello, thanks for your videos, maybe you can rig a sort of metal brushing to probe the board for connectivity, it would allow you to find a zone of connectivity and check the board quicker. Maybe some steal whool attached to your probe that you can press on the board ?

Love your work Vince.....@27:49 I'm sure there's a crack in the board visible under the wire (disecting the 5 & 6 of TP156?)

Great Video Vince :)

Getting spoiled with these regular videos, awesome work!

You get a gold star for perseverance Vince!! What is the type of flux you use for soldering?

Also at 28 minute- this is a four layer board and the via goes to one of the inner layers. It's very common for boards using BGA processors and high speed RAM to use at least four layers in order that they can handle the fanout of the traces under the chip in order that they don't miss their timing requirements.

Great video again! Keep it up! Like to fix things to. Need to fix this week my parents dishwasher. .30 error on the aeg dishwasher. 🙌

Add a wire to where the 5v was going in and add that connection to where the 5v should be going and bypass that trace even if you can’t find it. You know you have it worked with the battery and the correct voltage up to where it stops. I recommend reflowing the chip and fixing it with a bypass wire.

great video vince not had 1 of these yet mate

And another video you did prove your patience. Wow.

Question, could you not have plugged it in in the beginning the looked at the board with thermals to identify a faulty component?

I saw a video where someone (pretty sure it was MikesElectricStuff) used a little brush made of fine copper wire to follow PCB traces. Lots of strands helps probe a big area of the PCB at once without having to go around components etc. individually

Great work Gemma, and Liam! And of course you Vince!

You could do with having an oscilloscope to check the clock on circuitry like this, sometimes if the clock is missing the circuit won't work. Rf circuits are hard to repair without the equipment.

So the way you turn on an N-channel FET or an NPN BJT is to ground the gate or the base. I'd guess that the chip is a power sequencing chip (lots of chips have power sequencing requirements, where Vcore has to come up before Vio, or similar) and the transistor is gating the appropriate rail.

Lol I Love the “AutoAutoPowerOff” on the multimeter

It could be some kind of PMIC, which monitors / holds rails until others come up etc, it may occasionally lock up when turning on, it may not, it would need the memory for the operating system and to buffer the image etc. Interesting repair vid, send the other one to th3coder to reball. Would be good to get a quick review a few months down the line if they are still working with the bridge.

amazing sir well done load of work

could never to get these to work satisfactorily, input lag on controller inputs was always noticeable

It looks like the chip is some sort of power protection. Something like FPF2260ATMX, but the markings don't match, so I don't know if it is the correct one.

Pure guesswork on my part (and would need a pin-to-pin check), the IC may be a rebadged FPF2260ATMX OVP / UVLO controller, which would make sense if the transistors marked 138 were BSS138 mosfets. If so, then a replacement should be in order as the IC protects against over / under voltage (someone else pointed out a possible hole in a diode, so there may have been an under or over or reverse voltage situation).

I think it is just a safety thing. A power managament ic that can turn multiple transistors on and off by the enable signal(comming from the bottom, long line). And can detect short and undervoltage by the dividers.

@my mate Vince have you checked around on the board with the removed BGAs for another similar chip, that might fit and work where the faulty one was?

I feel right at home when you do the little janky stuff

I was wondering about the diode behind the power jack, it looks like there's a hole in it on the faulty first 1

AllAboutCirciuts has a detailed teardown of the SteamLink, including what each component is for. The only thing lacking is a schematic, but that would require people to xray the board, etc...

Just on first glance this looks like a current sensor. It's used for detecting overcurrent. Internal resistance is milli-ohms which is why the package can be so small - it generates almost no waste heat. It will assert the FAULT line when there's an overcurrent scenario.

Since my last comment was removed. Probably because it contained a link ... Probably this was already suggested, but I think that the voltage regulator is TPS715A01DRBT by Texas Instruments

43:22 - that's a Constant On-Time Non-Synchronous Buck Regulator - I guess it's there to allow low power mode or a sleep function.

hi i believe it is a reset or power control ic eg it removes power from the board to reset the chips and cuts power to enter a low power mode

If you would use the thermal camera trick, it would make things a lot easier. The guy from Northridge fix RU-vid channel does that all the time.

very nice one!

From Switch destroyer to Steam Link Master :)

interesting fault!!! could you take /replace the missing 5 volt signal from somewhere else and put a diode in the signal path to avoid damage elsewhere in the other circuits might be worth a try ,you do have a second chance with the other faulty steam link

I've fixed 2 steam links with bypassing the excact same regulator, i used to work in electronics repair shop until q2 2022 but i was fired because of greek economic crysis. Now im working alone on my home, i wasn't able to make any youtube video on these steam links because of the time pressure on my old work.

Yeah I don't get why you just don't have a wire from from the one that you know that's what has 5 volts to the spot where you know you need 5 volts and you're done

I've a steam link that the barrel jack/pwr is only peaking at 2.5v, then drops to 1/2 volt. With that, do I replace the boards power port?

23:27 camp voice!

3:34 I have some ethernet cable strippers like that, they work fairly well.

I know you probably know this, but with ir camera and voltage injection you could probably find that chip in a matter of minutes. But then we'd miss all the good stuff we love about your channel 😁

480p is the stable resolution for no studders. Use your TV to upscale (zoom in). Don't use this anymore, moved on to parsec.

I was thinking was that IC some kind of power management for sleep so it cut power from certain part of circuit when it's off/power down.

I don't think it is voltage regulators. I think it just bug converter chip or, some switch ic. Maybe the engineer worry about power on timing. So it not really a big deal at all, for general power rail. Unless the main chip require the precision power on timing.

Probably nothing but I think I saw crack through the outer rim gold trace on the first board. Was close to where you injected th 5v.

You could always sellotape a sewing needle onto your multimeter leads hehe

Early 3D prints will be some real artifacts in the future!

vince, did you see a hole, where it appears to be a diode? D4

Great job working out the cause there (and the bypass) - I am puzzled myself as to what that IC might be doing... If its a power management IC something somewhere might be getting overvoltaged with that bypass. I wonder if it provides 3.3v or lower for other stuff on the board. So it may work for a few hours and then something might die? It would be strange to have 5v going in, and then regulate 5v (and technically not possible without first boosting from 5v to a higher voltage). I have one of these myself btw - they are great =D I believe Jeri Ellsworth had a hand in creating these btw - check out her RU-vid stuff if you haven't already (in regards to women in tech).

I bet your wife hoovered the carpet before you did this repair, I know mine would have. " We can't show the Internet people a dirty carpet, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night ! !"

I think the chip might be a MONOLITHIC POWER SYSTEMS (MPS) MP21148GQD-P DC-DC Switching Synchronous Buck Regulator, 2.3V-5.5V in, 600mV to 5.5V out, 1A, 2.4MHz, QFN-6 ,or something like that (I know it's not the same model )but it's what I could find looking at components on the new steam deck hope it helps

Ooh new item not tried before

I'm not knowledgable enough to know what the faulty chip does exactly, but I'd think it would be safe to use. At worst, using it like that could lead to some other component blowing further down the line, and you wouldn't be any worse off than when you started. But most likely, it's not a strictly needed component, the 5V should already be stable enough not to damage anything, and my guess is that it was put in as an extra measure to meet strict safety or EMI regulations.

How long before you give reballing a try again?

You want to get hold of a IC picker Vince my mate. Even if it's just one of the cheap suction one's, you'll get a much cleaner lift when pulling bga's. Just a thought 👍🏻 Edit: sorry bud, should of watched the whole thing before commenting, it seems you're lifting them very cleanly with ya tweezers 🤷🏻‍♂️

Man... If i had the money i would definitely be a patreon mmv massive member... Im literally 13 years old writing on my moms account😅 anyway, vince love ur vids and wait every day for a new vid 😊 lots of ❤ hope u read this and know that you have young fellows like me following 🎉

So I was on reddit, I did something one of them did-- I plugged in a 9v power supply because the cable fit the steam deck, as far as I know it hasn't worked since. I did find the original 5v power supply, it still doesn't work. No ethernet lights or power at all. I got a replacement but I'm wondering if this unit can be fixed? If you can take a look at it, id be more than happy to send it to you for educational reasons, if you break it down I don't care.

When you got it working with the battery pack I was excited for you. That would have had me running a jumper wire. It wouldn't be a perfect fix but it would make it work long enough to get some usage out of it.

Epic perseverance

OMG Vince's hair was black when he started this repair :) lol :)

Don't think your bodge will be dangerous as far as your TV is concerned, have a raspberry pi with 5v missing from the USB ports so just bypassed and linked to the 5v incoming supply been working like that for over 2 years now,

It would make my year if you and EEVBLOG made a collab video love your videos!

Vince should have just bridged the 5v after you go it going with the batteries. Not a perfect fix but hey it worked. now its dead. Seen this done by laptop repair people on here.

Nice. I got to a video early for once.

Hey Vince you shouldn't take off the CPU there is no way 5v go there anything more than 2 volts will fry the cpu. It must be some power supply chip that should supply 5 v and is not doing its thing or some resistor on the track don't check continuity, check oms resistance to find where the track is going...

That little square thingy is Power advisor, it monitors power boot sequence, all input voltages and fabricate enable signal if boot sequence pattern is correct. Why you took out the CPU, it is powered by 0.9V, why you took RAM, it is powered by 1.2V, this will give you nothing, unless you want to train BGA reballing and why not start doing that here? ;)

Trying. To. Fix. 2X. Steam Links. With. No. Power game

Vire!

That chip looks similar to some of the type-c usb power delivery chips on Farnell. Just saying, might be that particular coding is no longer used. Just saying, not saying it is that.

8:20 there is a chip here with a hole in it could it not be the faulty component? never mind i have reached the end :)

Im the only person who used mine but it was bad on wifi back in the day and finally having my own ethernet i tried it and it was dead. Between uses its been seal in original packaging, and dry. a real annoying situation.

Maybe some sort of usb controller? It may current limit usb ports? Fault found brilliantly Vince well done

Couldn't you have just run a jumper wire around to where you added the battery pack power?

Are you fixing an item that is broken or damaged.

No repairs needed because no one ever used them enough for it to break! Mine probably got less than 10 hours of use, and just sits on a shelf.

Hi Vince When you work off camera Do you you still talk Like you would with camera on

a voltage regulator ensures the voltage never goas above a certain voltage.

Steam Link Hardware is discontinued in favor of the App

Not sure if it was mentioned but there should be either one or two transistors that switches the unit on once it or they are biased correctly. When you fed 5 volts into the circuit to get it going you simply bi-passed the sensing transistor/s or regulator thus powering the unit correctly, from there the voltage is fed to the voltage regulators Sensing circuitry usually are there as fault protection as in over voltage or over current.. "Power supply Spikes"

look at r31 cap at the bottom look like it out of place there is you answer

It's just me or the diode below the choke looks like it has a hole (D4)?

Sometimes, Ethernet does not light up until you plug something in

...and now reball the Chips you took off and put them on the Board again ;)

Hate when your probe is too big to go into the hole ;-)

works pretty much the same as a nintendo switch

Hey Vince Seems my comment was removed for some reason, i have a link where you can get the exact part you need. It is a PMIC