PC speaker volume control broken: fix or replace?

December 13, 2020 10:14 AM

I have a 7 year old Creative speaker system that looks similar to this: 2 speakers, a subwoofer, and a separate little volume unit with a rotary control. The volume control is faulty. How likely is it to be fixable?

The volume jumps all over the place when moving the dial. There are 3 small screws underneath the volume unit, so I may be able to open it, but would there be serviceable parts?

I doubt Creative would sell a replacement remote unit for a 7 year old speaker system. Or would they?

In this situation, should I just buy a whole new system? It's £35 on Amazon, which I'd rather not spend.

posted by snarfois to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: The volume knob is most likely connected to an analog potentiometer (rather than some kind of digital encoder). you could try cleaning it with some De-Oxit. Maybe you've got a friend that already has some. A can costs about a third of the price as a new system.

You could also just try turning the knob back and forth many times to see if that will clean off whatever is causing the issue.
posted by jonathanhughes at 10:24 AM on December 13, 2020 [4 favorites]

Seconding that this is probably something that can be cleaned and put back together, not something like a blown capacitor or faulty electronics. De-Oxit would be if it has corrosion right? It might also just be gunk/dust. You've been touching that dial for years and the grime adds up.

It would also be worth looking for a part number on the little controller, or the speakers themselves. You might be able to find someone selling it, you never know.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:43 AM on December 13, 2020

Jon is exactly right, you just need to spray inside the potentiometer with deoxit. The fix is trivial, getting to it can be hard.
posted by fritley at 11:44 AM on December 13, 2020

The fact that the volume jumps around makes me think there might be a conductive bit of something in the dial, as said above...you might try whacking it as you move the knob to both ends of the dial (that's what she said.) There might also be a short that's wiggling when you turn the knob. Open it up, it there's a circuit board check all the components and make sure their wires haven't snapped, solder them if they have. Does the volume jump around if you jiggle the wire going into the box and not the knob? If so, open it, remove/desolder wire, cut off 2 inches, strip the ends and resolder/reattach. (If the wire has one of those plastic flex ends that cords have near the plug-in, just cut it off with the wire (if it's not reusable), but make sure to knot the wire just under your stripped ends and have the knot IN the box when you close it up. This is so that pulling on the wire is stopped by the knot instead of pulling on the circuit board/solder directly.)
posted by sexyrobot at 12:11 PM on December 13, 2020

It seems to be a common problem. Solution is £1 +p&p via Mouser, then it will need soldering in place.
posted by StephenB at 1:46 PM on December 13, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! I opened it up. I don't have a cleaning solution, but spraying the potentiometer with air duster and wiggling it seems to have fixed it, for now.
posted by snarfois at 3:06 PM on December 13, 2020