Thx for the tip, will do and report back.
I thought about switching the switch but desoldering one from the broken GBA SP I have (some might remember) was a disaster. I think I’d need to use a desoldering iron instead of juggling the iron and the pump. Anyway, cleaning spray is the cheaper option for now.
Let’s see…
Might it be a good idea to apply some contact or silicone spray after the cleaner? 
I think anything that leaves a residue will make it worse
I’m having such a hard time trying to switch my ps2 to using OPL and a hard drive. I even tried updating to the latest version of OPL but no matter what I do the app itself just boots to a black screen. probably because I need to create an OPL folder somewhere. However I can’t get uLaunchElf to recognize the hard drive so that I can poke around the file system. But I can format the hard drive with HDLoader or WinHiip, so I know it’s not an issue with the hard drive or the network adapter. I can even transfer games over and get them to show up in HDloader. Of course the game had a black screen but I’m going to chalk that up to compatibility issues with using HDLoader. I’m very frustrated…
i strongly advise against using HDLoader or WinHIIP to format a drive for PS2
use this instead:
https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7907
I believe uLaunchELF is quite deprecated at this point, i recommend wLaunchELF (updated 2 weeks ago)
if you know how to set up an SMB share, network is one of the best ways to run games in OPL and you don’t have to futz with the hard drive stuff at all. you need a working network adapter though
i have an internal drive in my phat PS2 but i ended up figuring out the SMB functionality in OPL for my slim, and both benefit from the massive library i have on my shared drive (more than could fit on the HDD)
just did some research to see what the best way to do things is these days:
I’m not trying to use HDLoader or winhiip, it was just to prove there wasn’t a problem with my drive or my network adapter out of desperation
I had tried wlaunchelf but I was afraid of the one from 2 weeks ago bc it’s development/pre-release, and the one from 2019 doesn’t have a binary on github. So I tried the 2017 build but it’s impossible to tell if it was different from what I was using originally, they both say LaunchElf 4.43 at the top.
Now I’m on the 2 week old build and it still says 4.43 at the top which is funny. But it worked this time! The drive was already formatted from when I tried HDLoader. But I reformatted it anyway.
Now I still have to figure out why OPL doesn’t load lol. I have it installed on the memory card, I might figure out how to run it from the HDD. The app seems to load directly off of the USB drive OK.
So because I like giving myself projects, and I like pink things, I now have a clear pink PSP.
I’m kinda amazed I didn’t break it.
holy shit
Have flip-top modded a PS2, chipped a Saturn, and upgraded a steamdeck with aluminum backplate and bigger ssd, but that’s it.
