I’m going to be pretty point blank here: The PlayStation 4, namely the “standard” model that much of the owners of the system have, has absolutely terrible HDMI ports.
Don’t even begin to defend this or claim it not true, because guess what: it is. At the shop we have over the past 6 months performed about 50 HDMI port replacements on Playstation 4 consoles – incidentally, only the original models, not the slim or pro versions. Why? Because the original ports put in the console are quite simply shit. They are terribly designed, terribly installed, and even after a repair, due to the poor design on the motherboard, they are still fragile, and can still be broken if not taken care of.
That right there is a key point – taking care of the damned things. People don’t seem to do that at all.
It’s a fragile port. It should be taken care of. Hell, the fact that you spent anywhere from $200 to $400 on the machine would, one would think, be enough reason to take care of the console, but no, people yank stuff around and damage it all the time, and the HDMI ports on these consoles, which often times seem to find their way from house to house, just can’t stand that kind of treatment.
Now, why do I bring this all up with this tone? Because of a few reasons.
1: I have actually had people claim that this never happens. Oh yes, they have said to me that I “don’t know what I’m talking about” and that “PS4 HDMI ports never fail.”
Right, a simple search online shows how common this issue is.
2: At the shop it’s becoming somewhat common to have people who have rambunctious kids break a freshly-repaired HDMI port calling in demanding we repair it – only once, in over 50 repairs, have we had one that was a result of error on our part, and that was simply due to a poor solder joint that was an easy fix. In every other case, the port came back mangled and wrecked just as bad as it originally was before we repaired it.
We show the owners of the console the repaired port working fine every single time they come for pickup. It’s at a stage where we should, once they leave, say “you’re on your own” if it breaks, but we aren’t going to be like that because that would rule out us making up for an actual mistake on our end on the repair which, as I said before, only happened once and was a trivial fix.
Don’t get me wrong, Sony used poor quality parts and didn’t design the system right, but the trend seems to be the part will last if taken care of (namely, if plugged in once, properly, and not unplugged needlessly) which leaves the real issue at improper treatment, if even that of a mistake, it’s still broken due to user error made more prominent by a flaw in the design. Once it’s repaired by a competent group, it should be less likely to fail than it was, but still won’t last under undue stress and poor treatment.
So, the point: Take care of the thing, and it probably won’t break. It’s really that simple. If you don’t take care of something, don’t expect it to last. If it gets repaired and breaks again, all evidence points towards improper treatment and not an issue with the repair job – I’m sure this goes for nearly every shop out there doing these repairs.
I’m sorry to be so blunt but that’s just the way it is.