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Gaming headset soundcard repair question

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Jackanator

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So the past couple of weeks my usb headset with a sound card (hyper X cloud ll) has been dropping in and out depending on how the wire sits, recently it has gotten so bad that I decided if I could locate the issue, with great struggle I finally cracked open the sound card to reveal the circuits inside, I noticed the red wire was bent with a slight tear in it, not being a expert what so ever, would this be the cause of my problem and how would I go about fixing a issue like this, picture provided :)
 
I suggest you shorten the cable by 3 to 4 inches. (It is quite common for headphone cables to fracture near the ends.) The problem you will have is that the cord grip is probably moulded on the end of the cable. Sometimes it is glued and you can get it free by poking a pointed object. (Scriber, large needle or similar.) between the cord grip and the cable. If you get it free then slide it up the cable before cutting it. Sometimes the cable is made with thin strands of copper mixed in with some kind of thread. This type of cable is difficult to solder so tin the ends of the cable before trying to solder it back to the board. If you can't find a way to re-use the existing corf grip you will need to find a way to secure the end of the cable.

Les.
 
Hey thanks for the reply, i cut the wires back and re-soldered it, you were right about the thin copper, the problem seems to be still there but not as violent so to speak, you think it might be further down the line, i cut about 6 inches off ?
 
I see there's also a lot of crud around the area where the wires are soldered to the pcb. I'd try to remove that carefully, in case it is partly shorting tracks.
 
Hey Alec, I don't think its crud, must be the lighting but its no where elese on the circuit, might even be from the heat from when the soldered the wires on changing the look of the board slightly underneath, again no expert but it doesn't seem to be crud at all :)
 
The cable normally breaks near where it goes into the device. The fault could be at the headphone end. Try bending the lead while listening to something See. if you can find a place where bending the lead makes the sound come and go. After Googling "hyper X cloud ll" I think I had the wrong idea of what it is. I imagined a usb cable from the computer to an external sound card box which converted the usb signals to sound and then an audio cable from this box to the headphones. I think now that the usb cable goes to the headphones which contains the sound card that does the usb to audio conversion. Which of these is correct ? It does not make any difference to the way you find the position of the fault on the cable. If it is a usb cable then the easiest way to fix the fault may be to buy a usb cable and cut one end off and solder the wires to the board. If it is an audio cable then I think it could be difficult to find some suitable cable.

Les.
 
Hi Jack,

Failures like this tend to happen at one end, the other, or both. Unless you tie knots in the cord or put something heavy on top of them, it probably isn't broken in the middle. I expect your wires are also breaking at the USB end of the cable. You may need to replace the plug, which would require a fair bit of work. It is not impossible though.

Matt
 
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