Hi Jules, one of the ways to isolate a heat issues is to find a can of cold spray (Chemtronics Freeze Spray). They sell them at electronics stores and places like www.mcmelectronics.com (just searcj for it there). You allow the fual to start and then selectivespray different parts to cool them down. If the fault goes away on a particular device then you have your culprit. best regards, Steve Thatcher Original Message: ----------------- From: Jules Richardson julesrichardsonuk(a)yahoo.co.uk Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2003 10:04:56 +0100 (BST) To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org Subject: breathing life into old chips hi, this is sort of off-topic as it applies to my TV and not a computer, but I bet some of the folks here can offer advice... :) the microcontroller in the set seems to have developed a fault which only appears when the set's warm. Tracking down a replacement seems to be easier said than done as the chip was obviously discontinued a while back (and then I'd have to worry about the on-board ROM anyway). At the moment though there's no heatsink on the chip - if I do stick a heatsink on it in the hope that it keeps it cool enough to operate, is it still likely to fail at a later date anyway? Once a chip's started to exhibit heat-related problems is that basically the end of it even if something's done about the cooling? I figure some of you people will likely know about these things :) (the chip in question is a ST9293J9B1/AEL for the record, but no infomation appears to exist on the web or on ST's site for it; wish I could get pin-outs to check that it is the chip and not surrounding circuitry that's failing) cheers! Jules For a better Internet experience http://www.yahoo.co.uk/btoffer http://mail2web.com/ .