Mary Poppins would be proud, shining up the old PS one eject-button mechanism. No idea what Mary Poppins is? Shame on you! (Or maybe your parents!)

Another PlayStation with an eject button that doesn’t want to cooperate. You can give it a little wiggle and it’ll eventually behave, but that’s hardly a particularly satisfactory way to open a console. Let’s see what’s hiding underneath.

There are two little retaining clips underneath the mechanism that need to be released before the button comes free. A bit fiddly, but once they’re out of the way you can lift the button off and see what’s going on. Look at that mess!

There’s a considerable amount of grime around the plastic sliding surfaces, including something that looks suspiciously like chocolate syrup. Wonderful! No wonder the thing keeps getting stuck. The mechanism itself is rather clever, with little plastic pieces that slide against one another as the button is pressed, but they aren’t going to move very smoothly when covered in sticky rubbish.

I’ve pulled the mechanism apart and given everything a good clean with cotton tips and cleaner. Make sure you clean the actual button as well as the bits it slides against. No point putting a nice clean button back into a filthy mechanism!

I’ve seen some pretty extraordinary things inside computers as a repair technician, so a little chocolate-looking residue isn’t the worst of it. Full-grown adults manage to spill beer into their computers, after all. Honestly, don’t drink over your consoles and computers!

The improvement is immediate. The button moves much more smoothly, and after reassembly it’s behaving properly again. I was thinking about adding a little ceramic grease, but the cleaning has made such a difference that there’s no need for it.

I’ve also had a look at the power button. It’s not quite as troublesome, but there’s certainly some gunk in there too. Another PlayStation that doesn’t need its buttons wiggled every time you want to use it!

Sources