(Image borrowed from Hardwarezone.com)
Creative Zen Micro Headphone Jack Fix
Written by: MercX (Ernesto Perez)
Hello everyone. I am assuming that if you are here you too have experienced a damaged headphone jack on your Creative Zen Micro unit. I made this tutorial for those of us who have experienced this issue and specifically for the guys on the Creative forums. This may not be the greatest tutorial, but its my first. Just as a warning before we start, I can not be held liable for anything that you may do to your Micro by following these instructions. Also opening your Micro and performing this fix does void your warranty and soldering should be performed by a professional. If these instructions are followed to the "T" you should have a repaired Micro in about 20-30 minutes, and without losing any information on the harddrive. So lets get started.
Just as a note: All pictures are linked to larger pictures of the ones displayed; And when I say larger I mean really large (3072 x 2048 resolution). This pictures were all taken with a Canon Digital Rebel to give you guys the best pictures I possibly can. Hope they help!
First the tools needed:
A set of small screw drivers (1.4 mm flat head and a micro
Phillips screwdriver)
(Image borrowed from Hardwarezone.com)
Soldering Iron
(Any soldering iron should do)
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Now lets get started...
1. Heres the Micro before we open it up.
2. Remove the battery cover and battery and move them aside.
3. Now take a look at the top of your player. Slide the power button to
the hold position. Take the 1.4mm flathead and apply light pressure to the
left side of the power button area. Press towards the left slightly and
slowly lift. The top area is help in place with a small amount of sticky
glue under it.
4. Once the top is off you will notice two small screws. Using the
micro Phillips driver unscrew the two screws and move them aside. Also
remove the power button so it doesn't fall off on its on later. You can
remove the button by softly prying it up (it will fall right off).
5. Take a look at the placement of the two metal lips highlighted in the red
square. These, plus the four small legs in the four holes hold the metal
casing to the plastic casing. You will get a better idea in the next
picture or two.
6. Now with both thumbs firmly on the metal area, slide the metal covering
towards the bottom of the Micro unit. It should slide pretty easily.
It won't slide very far, just far enough to release the locks (you will see this
better in the next picture).
7. Notice the placement of the two metal lips now. They should look
like the picture above. If they do you have successfully released the
actual player from the plastic housing.
8. In this step I suggest slightly prying the Micro from its casing.
There is a plastic clip under the bottom portion that hold the metal casing to
the plastic housing. Once you pry this clip carefully free, then push with
both thumbs from underneath pushing the player up out of the plastic housing.
They come apart pretty easily.
9. This is the clip I mentioned in the last step. In the Hardwarezone
tutorial for disassembling the micro they don't mention prying here so I'm
assuming that some of you may be able to take it apart with prying (I couldn't).
10. Just a look at the two pieces apart. The player is going to be
moved aside here (all contents intact!), since it won't be needed.
11. This is the part that we will be dealing with. Notice the two small
screws. Since I've taken mine apart once before to do my actual fix mine
will look a little different. Your two screws will have some blue glue
junk covering them that you will have to scratch off to be able to remove the
screws. Remove the two screws.
12. Now that the two screws are removed, remove the metal piece covering the
headphone and usb jacks. Then slide the small board out of the plastic
housing.
13. Here are a few pictures from a few different angles of the board.
You can see the USB and Headphone jacks and my repair on each. If you
can't see them I do highlight them in the next step.
14. Now in this picture you can see the solder points for the pieces.
The points highlighted with the red squares are the points for the headphone
jack and the ones with the red circles are the usb jack. All these points
need to be reinforced due to the poor job done on Creatives part to these parts.
The red arrow points the the pad on my Micro that was broken.
15. Now follow all the steps in reverse to put your Micro back together.
16. Test it out! You should have sound in both sides and a much more secure headphone jack.
Congratulations you have just saved yourself $40 and repaired your Creative Zen Micro yourself!
Hope this helped everyone out!
Tutorial written by: MercX (Ernesto Perez)
samurix@gmail.com
April 30, 2005
This tutorial was based on ideas taken from
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?id=1331&cid=9&pg=1
