I Paid $99 for a BROKEN Xbox Elite 2 - This One Was A Tricky Fix

this video is sponsored by the ridge wallet my name is steve i'm here because you broke something and this time it's an xbox one elite 2 controller i paid 99 for this controller on ebay now i'm going to see if i can figure out what's wrong and see if i can fix it so i've already got it out of the packaging it came in let's open it up and see exactly what condition it's in okay it's actually actually looks like it's in really good condition it's definitely dirty needs a good cleaning for sure you can see it's got all kinds of stuff here but other than that oh that definitely picked up a lot of smoke smell so that's going to be a big problem on this i'm going to have to disassemble this entire thing to get all the smoke smell off of the case and i'm hoping i can even do it sometimes the smoke smell just doesn't come out of things so that's the first thing i noticed let's take a look and see if there's anything else we can notice all the little buttons and everything seem to work normally obviously i haven't plugged it in yet i'll plug it in in a minute and see it wouldn't surprise me if these analog sticks were bad other than that it actually all seems pretty good do we have all the parts to it got these yeah it looks like we do have all the parts for it it's always handy these little parts sometimes cost a lot of money to replace so this little piece that goes right here looks like it actually popped out so i'm just going to put that on real quick there we go okay so initial impressions this actually looks in good condition the smoke smells gonna be a big problem but i think i can get that taken care of i'll have to disassemble the whole thing clean it all really well and then that should take care of the smoke smell but first i'm gonna plug it into a gamepad tester just to see what exactly is wrong with this so then we can get any of the other problems fixed so i've got this controller set up and connected to a gamepad tester i'm gonna check thumbsticks first because that's usually what the problem is although that thumbstick is perfect let's check the right thumbstick the right thumbstick is also perfect okay right trigger left trigger oh we don't have anything on the shoulder buttons we have no input from any of these buttons okay the x button works so it seems we have no input from any of these buttons right here the abx y buttons and also the d-pad so let me try the buttons underneath i also seem to get nothing there so i'm gonna check and see what the seller said was wrong with this i don't even remember what it was i should have checked that first but i'm gonna check it now and see what the seller said and see if we can replicate that here here is the description for this controller the item is not working as it should device says where from being used buttons on the controller do now work do not work or when they do work they do not work as they should that isn't being sold for parts or repair so the solo description isn't super descriptive i'm going to try a couple other tests on this and see if i can trace down the problem before we get it taken apart so i'm using one other tester just to make sure that there's no issue with the tester itself so when i look at this tester all the same things happen once we get to these shoulder buttons or the abx y buttons there's just nothing at all going on so i think at this point it's time for everyone's favorite part let's take it apart okay and believe it or not this is actually the first time i've taken apart an xbox elite 2 controller i'm guessing it must come apart right here that is just a guess though okay that was actually a little bit nerve-wracking i can't remember the last time that i've taken something apart that i've never taken apart before i think it's been a while okay but we're in now it's time to remove these screws it looks like then we can get under this piece see we have going on in here it looks like that is a torx t9 looks like we have some sort of warranty sticker oops we don't need no stinking warranty anyways this video is brought to you by the ridge wallet it's light sleek and industrial it doesn't fold or awkwardly bulge in your back pocket it's actually designed to fit easily in your front pocket and it seriously changed my whole pocket situation most people are still carrying around while it's designed in the 90s carrying around old gift cards and receipts but the ridge wallet can change all of that i really love it but don't take my word for it there's over 30 000 5 star reviews as you guys know on this channel i love to take things apart one of my favorite things about this ridge wallet is i can actually take it apart it actually even comes with extra screws right in the box i can remove this money clip if i'd like to or i can add another money clip on the front of the wallet as well another thing i love is that the ridge wallet is made with rfid blocking technology that protects me from digital pocket pickers that's not something i had to think about back when i bought my first wallet but it's certainly something i have to think about now get 10 off today with free worldwide shipping and returns by going to ridge.com tronixfix that's ridge.com tronixfix and use the code tronixfix at checkout the top link in the description will take you right there there we go okay let's take a look at these contacts real quick there's a little bit of corrosion right in there let me show you that there we go so there's a little corrosion there i doubt that's enough to cause our problem but since there's corrosion there most likely there's more corrosion in this thing so this is looking like probably some sort of liquid damage and we definitely have some liquid damage there's not a lot so far we've got liquid damage on these components maybe some down here and maybe some right here some of this stuff is totally normal this white looking stuff sometimes that's totally normal but this definitely is not and this board right here seems to be the board that was having the biggest problem so i'm actually going to take this board off and then we'll take a look at this blue board underneath of it all right now on the regular xbox one controllers there's a connector here feels like it's the same on this one so i don't know if i can pull this all the way out we got the headphone jack that fell out that's normal so i'm just not getting enough clearance here to get this green board out i'm not sure how to take these trigger switches off but i think i might need to take this screw out down here and down here so i'm going to try that next i don't know if that removes them or not there is a pin down in there that i might need to take out but let's see if this does anything when in doubt take out more screws right okay let's see what that did oh there we go that's what i was hoping okay that whole thing just came apart all right that means we should be able to do the same with this one hopefully there we go yep got it okay now can we lift this out okay the problem seems to be this analog stick cover right here it doesn't actually fit through this blue motherboard you can't really see very well but this hole down here is just too small so i've got to take this off first i am not totally sure it comes out it must come off i've never tried that with these before on normal controllers it's actually pretty easy to get these off on this one it is not okay yeah yeah it unscrews i can hear you yelling at me in the comments yes i should have known that but i didn't okay so these unscrew from the analog stick on the motherboard that's actually a good sign that means that these analog sticks are probably upgraded over the normal ones either way we have that off now we should be able to get that motherboard out now we should be able to get this green motherboard at least out enough to get a look at this blue motherboard underneath yeah that's what i'm talking about that's better now it's not going to come out all the way we do have these gray wires still attached but this should give us at least an idea of what might be going on under here yep definitely some liquid damage there as well as some liquid damage over here i am going to remove this blue motherboard so we can get a full look under here and see if we can see any other liquid damage under here i do also want to say real quick if you're having analog stick issues with drifting analog sticks this is normally the part that needs to be replaced sometimes you can just get take some canned air and blow in here and then also some ipa and brush in there and try and get all the dirt and debris out but usually these just need to be replaced and to do that you actually have to heat up all these little solder points right here until that analog stick falls out the bottom and then you can put a new analog stick up in there and then redo all the solder joints so it's definitely not an easy job definitely not for someone that doesn't know how to solder but that's how you do it okay i think we can just pull this out it's got this metal stud in the back here and then still attached up front here too there we go okay let's see actually it's not in too bad of shape this definitely needs to be cleaned this is worrisome you got like some rust around this switch we'll get that cleaned up though and see if that will still work other than that this doesn't look to be in too bad a condition maybe a little bit of liquid damage on this chip but overall this looks pretty good now while i'm in here i will remove all these buttons and clean them all since we're here we might as well just do a full refurbishment of this controller now that i have all those buttons nice and clean it's time to take a look at the motherboard and for that i'm going to need a microscope so i can really see what's going on so i'm going to get under the microscope and let's see how bad the liquid damage is so here we have a little bit of liquid damage and over here we have even more liquid damage nothing here this looks good looks good under there and here we go some more liquid damage right here possibly liquid damage under this chip so we'll need to clean that up with the toothbrush and that's it for this side i'm going to turn this board over and we'll check the other side so here's the other side of the board right away i see some pretty serious liquid damage here looks like these thumb sticks could use a good cleaning a little more liquid damage here and a tiny bit up here even even got one pin on this connector right here that looks like it's got some damage so for this sort of liquid damage the first thing i'm going to do is take my dental pick and just try and clean up all the little joints and then i'll take my toothbrush with some 99 isopropyl alcohol clean that all up and then we'll turn it over and do the same thing on the other side of the board and then i'll make sure the board is fully clean to get off any smoke residue then it'll be time to reassemble the controller so i'm just going to be removing this corrosion with my dental pick this helps me see the joints better to see how the solder looks and then also obviously just gets the corrosion off one of the main problems with this type of corrosion is it can actually separate the chip from the motherboard these solder joints can go bad another problem with this kind of corrosion is it can actually jump two joints together so electric electricity is flowing between the two joints when it shouldn't so those are the two main problems with this type of liquid damage but overall these solder joints actually look pretty good you can see once i get them cleaned off then they are nice and shiny there's no corrosion down on the board itself so these joints actually look okay let's look at this one real quick yup same thing here that joint is going to be fine okay now that i'm mostly done with cleaning the corrosion off with my pick i'm going to go through with a toothbrush and some ipa and just really get in there with the bristles and clean it all even better and here you can see how well that looks this is what it looks like when you have minor corrosion if any of these solder joints were bad or any of these little traces like these torn up then i would have to repair those but here you can see all the solder joints look good all of them are shiny none of them have been eaten away by the corrosion so i'm going to finish cleaning up the rest of the spots see how they look then we can get this controller back together so this green motherboard is looking pretty good i do have to still clean the blue motherboard then i also have to clean off the rest of the controller and get as much of the smoke smell out as i can then we can test it and see if it works and put it back together now this board is looking pretty good i think it's time to install it back into the controller enough so we can test it then we got to clean the controller and put it all back together so this should be together enough to test it i'm going to plug it in and see if these buttons work now okay it does come up on the screen let's check the analog sticks okay those do work trigger buttons work let's try the a button ah no still doesn't work so unfortunately there's something else wrong with this i'm thinking it's probably this chip right here as there was some liquid damage on that and if the liquid damage is underneath the chip that's going to cause a problem this chip is a ball grid array chip also known as a bga chip which means there's solder balls underneath this chip so i think what i'm going to try and do is reflow this so i'm going to heat the chip up with my hot air soldering station until the solder flows then i'll let it cool back down and then we'll see if it works so here is my sort of strange reflow setup for this chip i have my silicone heat mat that is protecting the rest of the controller i have kapton tape protecting any sensitive components on the board so now i'm going to bring in some flux and put it all around the chip that will help the solder flow underneath the chip then i'm going to heat the chip up until i can nudge it just a little bit that'll tell me that the solder is fully melted then i'll let it cool down and put it all back together and test it again [Music] and now this chip has been reflowed now i'm gonna get it back together enough to test it and see if that's restored the function of this board you probably noticed this plastic piece right here did melt a little bit but the components underneath are fine there's no problems there so even though that did melt a little bit it's going to be just fine so now i'm going to get it back together and see if it works now i've got it back together enough to test checking it out right here on the gamepad controller tester and unfortunately none of the buttons are working just like they were before so now it's time to diagnose this a little bit further i have a feeling that chip that i just reflowed may need to be replaced but let's look at a little closer and see if we can figure anything else out that might be causing the problem so i was thinking that it might have been this chip but looking at it further these analog sticks work fine seems like everything on this part of the board works mostly fine and a lot of things on this board do not work fine the usb port works fine and the xbox x button works fine but a lot of the other functions do not these buttons work fine while these buttons don't work fine so it may be something on this board it still could be that chip but i got some diagnosing to do now so i've been looking at this blue board and i just noticed this chip right here that definitely has some more liquid damage here and along these pins so i suspect this because when we turn it over these are all the buttons that don't work these guys right here and that is and this chip is directly underneath those buttons so i think those buttons are controlled by this chip and this chip reads them so i'm guessing maybe this is our only problem i'm going to clean this up and i don't think i need to reflow it just because the joints actually look fine but there are some bridges over here so i might need to run my iron over these i'll take a closer look once i get it clean and then we can test it again now it's sort of hard to see here but if you look this joint has it looks like sort of some rust on it and so does this one so i'm actually going to take my iron and go along these and clean these joints up if there's a break in the joint right here or if it's rusted through then this chip is not getting a good connection with the pad on the motherboard so after i get these re-soldered then i'll go through and test it again and hopefully that'll fix it and i went through and just redid every joint on this chip just to make sure they're all good so now i feel pretty confident that this chip is soldered on correctly and each pin is making contact so i'm gonna put this back together enough to test it and see if we got it figured out okay it's back together enough to test it i've got it plugged in to the gamepad tester let's try one of these buttons oh hey there we go that's totally working that button works the button that button works that's it we fixed it so this xbox elite 2 controller is working great if you want to see more controller repair videos i'll put a playlist up on your screen so you can go hang out with me over there and see if i can fix those thank you again to ridge wallet for sponsoring this video thank you so much for watching and i hope you have a good one

Channel: TronicsFix

Views: 387,634

Rating: 4.9296603 out of 5

Keywords: tronicsfix, tronicsfix xbox controller, xbox elite controller series 2, xbox elite, xbox controller

Id: 1Prhb66Hgo0

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020