I have two broken TI-83 Plus Silver Editions. I hope it's OK that I am putting both in this one topic, but I can create a second one if I need to.
Here's the story:
I have a TI-83 Plus Silver Edition that I've been using for about 12 years. I was just using it this spring for a math class. I'm now taking a couple more in the summer, but when I went to use the calculator on the first day of class, it would not come on. I assumed the batteries were dead and replaced them with new ones, but that didn't help. Finally I realized that the batteries were not dead to begin with (tested them in another calculator), but the screen's contrast was just super low. Upon turning it up, I found that the screen was just a solid black block. I could connect to it with TI Connect, and it was running normally, the display was just useless. I took it apart and jiggled the ribbon cable connecting the display to the motherboard, and that got the screen to show something. Unfortunately, it only displays the left fourth of the screen or so. With this information, and a lot of Googling, I've determined that the ribbon cable is probably screwed up, as that seems to be quite common. I've removed it and am going to attempt to solder replacement wires tonight. Hopefully, that will fix the first calculator.
I mentioned these problems to my dad, who told me that when I first got my TI-83 Plus SE, it stopped working just a few months in, and we got a replacement (the one above with the screwed up display). I had actually forgotten all about this, but he still had the older calculator. I put new batteries in it, and here's what I've found about it:
You can get it to turn on sometimes. Sometimes just pressing On works. Sometimes you have to remove a battery and replace while holding Delete. Neither method always turns it on. Once it is on, it turns back off pretty quickly (but seemingly at random). Every time it turns on, it says that RAM was cleared. I found some people online with this problem, but have been unable to find any solution. Is this just not fixable by a user? If it isn't, can you still return these things? I know they are ancient!
Here's the story:
I have a TI-83 Plus Silver Edition that I've been using for about 12 years. I was just using it this spring for a math class. I'm now taking a couple more in the summer, but when I went to use the calculator on the first day of class, it would not come on. I assumed the batteries were dead and replaced them with new ones, but that didn't help. Finally I realized that the batteries were not dead to begin with (tested them in another calculator), but the screen's contrast was just super low. Upon turning it up, I found that the screen was just a solid black block. I could connect to it with TI Connect, and it was running normally, the display was just useless. I took it apart and jiggled the ribbon cable connecting the display to the motherboard, and that got the screen to show something. Unfortunately, it only displays the left fourth of the screen or so. With this information, and a lot of Googling, I've determined that the ribbon cable is probably screwed up, as that seems to be quite common. I've removed it and am going to attempt to solder replacement wires tonight. Hopefully, that will fix the first calculator.
I mentioned these problems to my dad, who told me that when I first got my TI-83 Plus SE, it stopped working just a few months in, and we got a replacement (the one above with the screwed up display). I had actually forgotten all about this, but he still had the older calculator. I put new batteries in it, and here's what I've found about it:
You can get it to turn on sometimes. Sometimes just pressing On works. Sometimes you have to remove a battery and replace while holding Delete. Neither method always turns it on. Once it is on, it turns back off pretty quickly (but seemingly at random). Every time it turns on, it says that RAM was cleared. I found some people online with this problem, but have been unable to find any solution. Is this just not fixable by a user? If it isn't, can you still return these things? I know they are ancient!