dbx 160x acting strange

[joninc]

I am selling a dbx 160x that I never use... Tried it a few months ago and it worked fine... took it out of the rack and put on Craigslist... finally a buyer actually shows up yesterday and of course it's acting up.

The gain reduction meters are stuck on red and although it sounds like it's working fine, it looks totally messed up.

Did some googling and apparently this has happened before and can often be traced to bad solder joints on the board but I can't get the thing open! it's not screws - some weird alan key size and is so tight that nothing seems to budge it.... what's a good trick/tool for opening something like this up?

I'd order a special tool if there were something better for this than the little rinky dinky bars that are hard to get a good grip on a turn (it's a very small size)....

help?

[floid]

Just checked, my pair of 163x take a 5/64" allen wrench. I like the longer handled type wrenches, such as made by Stanley, as they provide more leverage.
My 166 (original, no letter suffix) shows full gain reduction unless the gate threshold is turned down. Just a thought.

[vvv]

Also, WD-40.

[joninc]

you'd spray WD40 into electronics?

[vvv]

Sure.

But here we are talking about on the case screws, no?