My Pioneer Elite VSX-36TX recently started sending popping and crackling sounds through all of the speakers. Once warmth can be felt through the top of the unit, lightly tapping the top of the housing makes the very annoying noises cease and they do not return.
Is this a problem which I can fix by replacing an internal part so I do not have to fork out a ton of money for labor? If so, what is the part description and number PLEASE?
I have the exact same amplifier with what sounds like the exact same problem. I opened up the amplifier, and while it was powered on started tapping around until I heard the popping and crackling suddenly increase. I was using a piece of wood and the plastic part of a screw driver for this. The popping and crackling suddenly burst out onto all channels when I was tapping on the DSP board (encased in a metal enclosure to the very right of the amplifier).
I took off the metal enclosure (with the receiver turned off, of course :), and with the receiver on, and started tapping around the DSP board, and I found that the biggest crackling effect was achieved when I tapped on the Cirrus Logic CS493292-CL chip which does all the decoding and switching.
I detached and took out the DSP board and looked at it very carefully but of course couldn't find any bad connections. I tried resoldering all the feet of the Cirrus Logic chip and many many components all around to no avail.
Finally I tried applying pressure to the chip while the popping was going on, and it stopped. Further investigation revealed that bending the board around the chip produced the same effect.
For the life of me I couldn't figure out why bending the board eliminates the problem, but my solution was to put a piece of eraser wrapped in masking tape and taped to the Cirrus Logic chip, and two other pieces on the back of the board in such a way that when the metal enclosure was replaced onto the board, it put gentle but firm pressure onto the Cirrus Logic chip and at the same time bent the DSP board slightly.
It's been a few days without popping, clicking or static, but time will tell. Good luck!
Let me share with you the permanent solution to my problem, as narrowing it down took a long time and it may be of help to others. Also, let me say up front that this permanent solution requires soldering skills and a very steady hand.
The problem actually turned out to be a loose connection (invisible to the naked eye) on what appears to be a small memory chip to the right of the big Cirrus Logic chip (CS493292-CL). This chip is very near the top of the DSP board, and pressing it down in my case was making the noise disappear. Bending the board was causing the loose connection with this chip to get connected, but I wasn't completely satisfied with the solution. Hence, I set out to finally and completely eliminate the problem.
I tried many ways of diagnosing the problem, and I'll include two that didn't help to save you trouble:
1) I tried spraying individual components with a special freezing spray, but this spray would help in diagnosing a faulty chip or capacitor, and it didn't help as much to find the loose soldering connection
2) I tried tapping components with a piece of plastic in order to provoke the crackling, but this gave lots of false positives, because the vibrations were affecting the entire board and the loose connection was excited by tapping a totally different component.
WARNING AND DISCLAIMER: Powering on the amplifier with the case off is
dangerous and must be done very carefully. Be sure there are no
children and pets around. Also, only do this if you are confident of
your abilities to avoid getting electrocuted! Also, be careful to first ground your hands thoroughly by touching the case
of the amplifier to avoid damaging the components. Also, don't touch anywhere NEAR the main transformer,
because that's where the 110/220V lines go.
What did help was to power on the amplifier with the metal enclosure of the DSP board *off*, and while hearing the crackle to very carefully, taking very special attention not to shake the board, gently press on individual components with my finger while supporting the board. The idea is to press gently in order to avoid bending the board and fixing the problem from a distance.
Once I pressed on the memory chip I mentioned at the beginning, the crackling disappeared immediately. So I let the amplifier cool again, powered it on, and repeated the test successfully.
After identifying the component, I took a soldering gun with a very, very fine tip, and "reflowed" the solder *without* adding *any* extra solder. What I basically did was to put the tip of the soldering gun down on each pin of the chip individually for a few seconds, until the solder became shiny. This told me that the solder has been melted and no more heating is necessary.
Be extremely careful not to solder two pins together. For this, you need three things:
1) A steady hand
2) A fine soldering tip
3) NO SOLDER ON THE FINE SOLDERING TIP
If solder gathers on the tip, wipe it off with a wet sponge and wait for the gun to warm up again before continuing. If despite all your best efforts you do manage to solder two pins together, they can be separated in three ways:
1) Solder ****** (see Wikipedia for information)
2) Solder wick (see Wikipedia for information)
3) Utility knife (dangerous for the board)
After reflowing the solder on all the pins on the component you identified, the problem should be gone. I hope this guide is useful to somebody else!
hey i have thee same issue bought a usedd unitt the guy didnt tell me about this. do you think reflowing using a smd reflow kits heat gun would work?
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I had the same problem before and all i did was resolder a lot of loose connections on the whole unit, the only problem is that you have to take it apart carefully, also a bad capacitor can cause the same effect.
good luck
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Thank you iiordanovv! Your recommendation to add slight pressure to bow the "DSP board (encased in a metal enclosure to the very right of the amplifier)" immediately stopped the sounds. I placed a small piece of cut and folded radiator hose between the metal enclosure and the green board.
It has been two days and I have yet to heard the annoying noises.
I am very appreciative for your time and effort in solving my problem.
every now and then the speaker crackles. how do i fix this
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