[cswann1]

I don't know if it's kosher to ask for troubleshooting help here, and I apologize if it is not.

I have a solid state amp that is several years old. I bought it used from a Head-Fi member for a very reasonable price and I don't believe the seller knew about the problem when he sold it to me.

Anyway the amp turns on and works fine, but after a few minutes there is intermittent static in the left channel. The amp has separate volume controls for right and left and the static is at the same level (volume wise) no matter the position of the left volume knob.

Inside the amp are four devices that I think are transistors. They have small copper heatsinks on them. I can move one of them and make the static stop for a few seconds but the static comes back. I tried re-applying some thermal paste to that heatsink (Thermaltake Arctic Silver, good stuff) but that did nothing.

I have some skill with a soldering iron so a device replacement is doable.

Any advice would be appreciated. And again I apologize if this is not the correct forum for asking this kind of question.



EDIT: I just noticed that the device in question, with the heatsink, seems to be running a good bit warmer than the other three. Thanks Pars for your reply. I'll see if resoldering this component fixes the problem. If not I'll look at replacement.

 

[Pars]

You might just try resoldering the device (or all 4 of them). If they have heatsinks on them and get hot, that can stress the solder joints over time. I would use a solder sucker and remove most of the old solder and then just apply fresh solder to each joint. If you don't have one, you could just apply some fresh solder.