StarTreker
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2016
- Posts
- 817
- Likes
- 475
You think your receiver is dirty, think again! This was a Pioneer VSX-7300 receiver that somebody gave me in 1988, its never been cleaned in its whole life. The receiver started making popping and crackling sounds about 10-years ago and it was also having display problems. So I disconnected it and put it in storage, and there its been sitting for the past 10-years lol. I decided to pull it out and take a look at it, thats code for saying, I aint no expert on these things, so if I blow it out and it still doesn't want to work, its going to the dump. Which is a shame in itself cause it was like a 520 dollar receiver, top of the line for back in the day. But it weighs over 20 pounds, so the cost of shipping it to Pioneer to have it fixed and shipped back, would be more then what the unit is worth now.
As you can see from those pictures, this unit had quite a blanket of dust over it, which no doubt caused the unit to overheat a bunch of times. I know first hand that dust is the first killer for computer's, as I have worked on many. You can sort of see a discolored spot on the main board, its where the remote control chips are located. Here is what the unit looks like after I took 5-minutes to blow it out, you should have seen the dust cloud! lol
In those pics you can see the boards better now that the blanket of dust is gone. Not only can you better see the discoloration in the remote control chips area, but if you look at the transistor heat sink, you can see a mini board attached to the top. On both the left side and right side of the board is discolored. Since the left and right channel transistors are located at that heat sink in those areas, I am guessing that the mini board must be related to those transistors, then again I am no expert so what do I know, I just notice the obvious things that arn't normal. Now take a look at the filter caps in these pictures...
You can clearly see that the filter caps had leaked at the bottom, as I very much doubt that orange stuff is not glue, more likely capacitor electrolytes. None of the capacitors are bulging however, but one of the filter caps does show an orange crack on the top of it. When I did my testing with computer connected, and preamplifying a music source from my phone, the receiver display showed a good input level, so I know it was getting a strong signal. I however was not able to hear sound, until I cranked the volume to 3/4, then I could hear the faint sound of music in my big 10" 200 watt AAL speakers. This told me that the amp board was not functioning as the signal was not being amped to the speakers. I also tested the headphone jack and got no sound from it, so thats obviously out.
I tested all three fuses for continuity, and none of them are broken. However, that 10-amp fuse is looking mighty dark, but it still checked ok. I even removed it and put a new fuse in temporarily to test for sure, and made no difference to the receiver's operation. So while I am not an expert, I've pretty much concluded that the filter caps leaking, electrolyte, corrrect me if I am wrong here, is conductive, and therefor short the copper bridge connections, therefor probably fried the power board. And since the power board is fried, so is the amp board. Although, the remote functionality working, as well as the display partially working dumbfounded me.
The tuner board looks ok, but what good is that if the rest of it is dead lol. I am sure to have this unit repaired, it would cost as much as a new unit, so better to spend 500 or more for a new high end unit and be done with it. Just thought I'd share this with you guys for those who might be interested.
As you can see from those pictures, this unit had quite a blanket of dust over it, which no doubt caused the unit to overheat a bunch of times. I know first hand that dust is the first killer for computer's, as I have worked on many. You can sort of see a discolored spot on the main board, its where the remote control chips are located. Here is what the unit looks like after I took 5-minutes to blow it out, you should have seen the dust cloud! lol
In those pics you can see the boards better now that the blanket of dust is gone. Not only can you better see the discoloration in the remote control chips area, but if you look at the transistor heat sink, you can see a mini board attached to the top. On both the left side and right side of the board is discolored. Since the left and right channel transistors are located at that heat sink in those areas, I am guessing that the mini board must be related to those transistors, then again I am no expert so what do I know, I just notice the obvious things that arn't normal. Now take a look at the filter caps in these pictures...
You can clearly see that the filter caps had leaked at the bottom, as I very much doubt that orange stuff is not glue, more likely capacitor electrolytes. None of the capacitors are bulging however, but one of the filter caps does show an orange crack on the top of it. When I did my testing with computer connected, and preamplifying a music source from my phone, the receiver display showed a good input level, so I know it was getting a strong signal. I however was not able to hear sound, until I cranked the volume to 3/4, then I could hear the faint sound of music in my big 10" 200 watt AAL speakers. This told me that the amp board was not functioning as the signal was not being amped to the speakers. I also tested the headphone jack and got no sound from it, so thats obviously out.
I tested all three fuses for continuity, and none of them are broken. However, that 10-amp fuse is looking mighty dark, but it still checked ok. I even removed it and put a new fuse in temporarily to test for sure, and made no difference to the receiver's operation. So while I am not an expert, I've pretty much concluded that the filter caps leaking, electrolyte, corrrect me if I am wrong here, is conductive, and therefor short the copper bridge connections, therefor probably fried the power board. And since the power board is fried, so is the amp board. Although, the remote functionality working, as well as the display partially working dumbfounded me.
The tuner board looks ok, but what good is that if the rest of it is dead lol. I am sure to have this unit repaired, it would cost as much as a new unit, so better to spend 500 or more for a new high end unit and be done with it. Just thought I'd share this with you guys for those who might be interested.
