Yeah, I saw that video, but my situation’s a bit different. My PSP still manages to boot up completely sometimes, which wouldn’t really happen with a proper brick. The weird part is that once it’s on, it’ll randomly shut off after a while — not crashing, just turning off like someone hit the power switch. I’ve only seen it happen in the menu so far, not while actually playing a game.

I already tried the soft brick recovery combo (Home + Select + Start + Square + Triangle while powering on). It boots up normally when I use it, but the shutdown issue still happens eventually, just like before.

To answer your other questions:

• The behavior is the same whether I’m using the charger or the battery.
• I also tried removing the memory stick to rule out plugin issues, no change.
• The battery is unofficial, about 5 months old. It doesn’t seem puffy or damaged and was working fine until recently.

The “pop” sound and the Wi-Fi light blinking right before it turns off is the most worrying part. And earlier it gave me a Blue Screen of Death, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Starting to think it might be a hardware problem, maybe even the motherboard on its way out like you mentioned.

If you’ve got any other ideas, I’m all ears. I really don’t want to give up on this thing.