Freeplay Zero unresponsive

[Flavor]

Hey TexasPorcupine! I'm sorry that I didn't respond sooner. Sometimes it's tough for me to respond on the weekends. I was actually camping Sat/Sun.

I wouldn't say that the Pi Zero has a reputation for being defective, but I have definitely heard of cases similar to yours where replacing the Pi itself just made things work.

I don't see a problem with your soldering. There is a fair bit of flux there that you could clean up with some isopropyl alcohol, but I don't think that would actually be causing any issues.

One thing you could try is turning off the WiFi to see if that potentially helps anything.

How are you transferring ROMs? USB memory stick, WiFi?

Does it crash in Emulationstation without any ROMs on the SD?

How many ROMs are you putting on there?

What size SD are you using? I know you said you tried multiple, but were they all from the same seller and/or the same size/brand?

I'm kinda just trying to brainstorm some troubleshooting ideas here. I have heard of counterfeit SD cards, and I have heard of SD cards that had compatibility problems with Raspberry Pi. I've also heard of ROMs that caused crashes. All of these things are rare, but I think we're at the point of chasing a rare occurrence sort of issue, I guess.