[jboehle]

I took apart my Toshiba 3960 tonight and when taking "before" pictures, I noticed that 2 pairs of pins on the main Zoran Vaddis 6 chip (the biggest chip there) were soldered together. Here are the pics:

What do you guys think? I have yet to turn it on. I'm about to go back downstairs and plug it in to see if it works. I haven't done any part of the mods to it yet.

-Jason

 

[RickP]

The pair on your first photo looks like it shares a common pad.

The pair on your second photo looks like one pin has a contact on the board; the other pin would be floating so is tied to its neighbor.

I'm pretty sure these connections are intentional, if not essential and if the Toshiba is working normally should be left alone.

 

[jboehle]

Thanks for the quick response. That's exactly what I was thinking about both of those but figured I'd ask anyways.

I took it downstairs and plugged it in and the blue component video out doesn't work. So everything is output pink on the screen. Seeing as how all I had done to it was take the cover off and take pictures of it, I will be returning it to Best Buy for an exchange. Off to Best Buy....!

-Jason

 

[jboehle]

Actually, now after looking at mine, and comparing it to the Swenson inside pics of the 3960 at http://johnswenson1.home.comcast.net...the_board.html, I'm reluctant to get another one. It seems as if they have changed to a completely different main chip, which has not been reviewed very favorbly by Secrets. The Vaddis 6 chip in my player is the same one used in the CyberHome $40 player, and if you look at the Secrets shootout, the Vaddis 6-based players got really crapty reviews. Looks like Toshiba got cheap on us and stopped producing units with their Toshiba decoder chip. That would worry me about the unit sound as a whole.

-Jason