How I Saved My Logitech x210 2.1 Speakers From An Untimely Death
By Apoorv KhatrejaI have a pretty cramped workstation, and a part of that workstation is my Logitech x210 2.1 speaker system. Its been around an year since I bought them, and for the past 2 months, they have been dying on me.
The first problem that showed up was crackling sounds when I used the in-line volume control (wheel-style). I thought this was bound to happen over time, and ignored it as it wasn’t much of a problem at all. But soon the problem deteriorated. The right satellite stopped working. It would get working if I banged on the volume control for a while. Then the problem creeped into the left satellite too. The root of all the problems was inside the volume control. So I decided to open it up.
That was mistake number one. I fiddled around with the chip inside it, and managed to get both the satellites working, albiet temporarily. That was primarily because I had no idea what I was looking for, or what I was going to do inside the volume control box when I opened it. I just fiddled around with my screwdriver, and things magically worked, for a while.
After a month of using it like this, they became almost completely useless. The volume control, the satellites, everything apart from the subwoofer got bricked.
This is when I decided to take it to the service center and get it fixed. Tragedy starts here. Now I swear that I’m obsessive when it comes to organizing stuff and keeping things in their proper place, and I have a pretty neatly organized box of bills and invoices stacked in my cupboard. But this time, I just couldn’t find the bill for my speaker system.
I ignored this as a trivial problem, because most service centers usually use the serial number to check the validity of the warranty of a product, and won’t ask for the bill unless absolutely necessary. Of course I was wrong. I spent a good 50 minutes arguing with them about the date of purchase of my system, about how I had lost my bill. They also gave me heat about the fact that the screws below the volume control box proved that it was opened, which effectively voided my warranty. I tried everything to convince them, but the buggers wouldn’t listen. My travel to Nehru Place (which is like 30 km from my place) was futile.
So I came back home and was sulking at the failure of my day when I decided that this of course wouldn’t be the end of the journey for my speakers. I decided I could fix them myself.
All I did was one simple fucking Google search. Seriously. I reached this page at the Head-Fi community, which was about the problem of a crackling inline volume control on headphones. Somebody mentioned that moving the wheel back and forth rapidly a few times should help, because it dislodges the oxidized material. And that is all did. Zip-zap, zum-zam, shake shake. And yes, it was like voila.
Since yesterday, its been nothing but music to my ears. I did a quick bow to the Internet gods, and found new meaning in life. Its the happiest I’ve been since I had those amazing donuts at MOD, GIP Noida.
UPDATE : Oops. The fix was only temporary.

