PSP Mic not working fix

When in Japan I bought a copy of the "Talkman English for Kids!" PSP game. However, on testing it once I got home I found that while the game worked on my English PSP, the voice detection part of the game was not working. After looking into this, it turns out that the PSP does not have a built-in mic, but you need a separate accessory mic that plugs into the top of the PSP.

So I purchased the "Talkman" PSP game, which includes the USB mic in the package. The mic just plugs into the mini USB socket on top of the PSP. But on testing it, this wasn't working either. It seems that for some reason the mic draws power from the gold contacts either side of the USB connector rather than just using USB power.

The contacts on my PSP looked pretty dirty, so I thought I'd document how I cleaned them here as they are too small to clean with something like a cottonbud. I broke a cocktail stick in half, then dipped the broken end into Isopropyl alcohol. I then pushed the broken end of the cocktail stick into the hole where the contact is located. This is a pretty tight fit.

I then moved the cocktail stick back and forth and twisted it round to try and scrub the contact clean. Repeat with the other contact. If your contacts are pretty dirty like mine, you can then repeat the process with the other half of the cocktail stick until you hopefully have both contacts fairly clean.

After doing this, the mic works fine.