Thanks... but the warranty is already over... Any tips on repairing it myself?
It's not likely that you can fix it yourself. The problem is probably electronic, rather than mechanical.
TallCool1
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any tips on reseating the ribbons? what should i do?
It's not unusual for a ribbon connector on a mass-produced piece of gear to not be fully latched, or for the ribbon to be not fully poked home when it was latched, or for the ribbon not to be straight in the connector. Any of these conditions can cause problems.
The ribbon is connected to the printed circuit board via a ribbon connector. The ribbon connector consists of two parts,body and latch. The ribbon enters the connector body through a slot in the latch. The latch itself has "ears" or tabs for finger grips on either end of the long dimension. Grip the ears, not the ribbon, and (gently) pull the latch out, away from the body until it stops. This releases the ribbon. Pull the ribbon from the connector and look at it to make sure that it's not kinked, torn or ragged and that the metal contacts look shiny. If you want to clean it, isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab works best. Rubbing alcohol, while widely available, is not suitable for this purpose--it's 30% water. The easiest way to get near-pure isopropanol (about 98%) is to go to an auto-parts store and get an isopropanol gas dryer such as Iso-Heet. Note: Don't use a methyl alcohol dryer--methanol doesn't work as well as a solvent (the same goes for your gas tank, for that matter). It's easy to tell one from the other -- methanol dryers are cheaper and have a skull-and-crossbones poison warning on the bottle, ispropanol is less toxic, so it has no poison warning.
Once you are satisfied that the ribbon itself is whole, hale, hearty, and clean, you can plug it back in through the slot. Make sure that the ribbon is straight and pushed all the way in, but don't force it. Once it's poked home, gently hold it in place so it doesn't shift--then gently press the latch back into place by applying even pressure so that it, too goes back into place straight. That should do it.
TallCool1
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