I am a teacher in Arkansas and I am trying to fix some of the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition calculators that I have in my classroom. They will turn on and respond to the first button pressed but then will freeze. They cannot be turned off (except by removing the batteries) and the buttons cease to work.

I have attempted to clear the RAM and the problem persists. I have removed all batteries including the lithium and replaced them to clear the memory and I have also tried to remove a battery whilst holding down clear. Neither of those methods were successful. Please help.

Welcome to Cemetech, TeamRedmon. How many of these calculators have these symptoms? Did any (or all) of them have batteries corrode the battery compartments, or beverages spilled on them? These symptoms sound like keypads that are malfunctioning, either because one or more keys is stuck on each calculator, because battery acid corroded the keypad traces, or because sugary beverage residual is causing shorts.

Thanks for the welcome. There are 2 calculators that are showing the same problem. The batteries look and feel normal, no acid. I would like to say that no beverages have been spilled on them but I can't say that. It doesn't feel like they are sticky and they do not have any sort of residue on them, both of which you would expect from an accident with a soda.

Are you sure the calculators are completely frozen, and not just taking a long time to register key presses? If it is indeed the latter, it sounds like there might be something stuck in the linkport, such as a pencil lead. If there is something stuck, then the TI-84+ thinks there's another calculator connected, and tries to communicate with it, but it turns out it's not so good at talking with pencils, so it just gets super sluggish.

They are not completely frozen. I can't see anything in the linkport but I blew into it like an old nintendo cartridge and I got a slightly better response. I'll find a can of compressed air to spray in there and I bet that it solves the problem. Thanks! You're a champion.

If that doesn't work you may have to disassemble the calculators to push the pencil tip out from the inside.

Ok then. What is your result? Are they fixed now?