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Join Date: Apr 2005
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i soldered in a new pci - express slot after it broke
TRY MY SUGGESTIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK!
james.bennet1@ntlworld.com
james.bennet1@ntlworld.com
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PCI-E x1 or x16?
I say what I see. If you find my words offensive, then you find reality offensive.
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i split the socket by trying to fit an agp card in it
i split the socket by trying to fit an agp card in it
Last edited by jbennet : Mar 7th, 2008 at 4:05 am.
TRY MY SUGGESTIONS AT YOUR OWN RISK!
james.bennet1@ntlworld.com
james.bennet1@ntlworld.com
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Re: Repairing Motherboards (anyone know how) •
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Originally Posted by cart0181 
Thanks Kegtapper. You're my kind of Tech. I'm one that "forges ahead." Thanks for not being discouraging. My motto is "anything is repairable," but as you said in your post, it's not always worth it. I'm just starting out getting into motherboard repair. I've done capacitors and jacks, but I'm trying to get into more detailed component level work. I'm trying to learn how to determine what parts are bad. I've heard that on laptops usually MOSFETs can go bad. Is that correct? Any other tips for a guy just starting out would be very helpful. Thanks again.
There is no "Golden Fix" when repairing at PCB level. Yes on certain products there are "Stock Faults" but only on certain systems and products.
By just saying "Oh I was told these broke the most, blew most of the time i'll replace that" is abit of a hash job. If you have proper schematics and voltages for the board when it's POWERED UP and not powered then you have a chance. Plus knowing what the voltage and resistance of the CPU and other components should be at in a normal state is half the battle.
Just dont assume anything in this game, it'll bite you in the **** later on. Full and proper staged work through is the only way to cover yourself against repeat failures. Plus knowledge of the product is advantageous, you can only do this by playing round with it and sometimes making faults worse than before
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Last edited by techno t : Mar 7th, 2008 at 6:07 am.
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techo t- I know exactly what you mean, sometimes it is not so easy to have a working model right next to you, or have the schematics. Thats where pure logic and reasoning comes in.
How I discoverd the biggest headaches with HP DV4000. The unit came in, NO POWER, NO LIGHTS. subsequent tests on the board had power in every circuit, it just wouldn't come in.
The next afternoon another came in for a different issue. I substituted the on/off panel from B to A. The unit came on. So I looked under a magnifiying glass at the panel A, and saw that oxidation on test points of the board had eaten away the traces! So I hardwired a 24ga wire from the on/off switch directly to the pad at the ribbon cable. Tacked down the wire with hot glue, and the system was returned to normal. Estimated cost, $50 labor,
otherwise it would have been
35 for keyboard
10 for shipping
100+ labor (not my charge, but what the shop charges)
and down for about a week and a half waiting.
Be very wary of Chinese designs (which most are) - seems no consideration is taken on repairs later, and if it is - it is made to be near impossible as they can. Such as extremely narrow separation between electrical potentials on DC jacks, an unskilled eye will not see a short after replacing. Now I have started taking my camera and macro lens to catalog intentional defects in designs.
Another tip! Throw No Motherboard away... you might need one small part later. Such is the case with DELL 600m/D600 RV1 and RV2 are like soldering grains of sand. When they fly off, POOF they are gone!
How I discoverd the biggest headaches with HP DV4000. The unit came in, NO POWER, NO LIGHTS. subsequent tests on the board had power in every circuit, it just wouldn't come in.
The next afternoon another came in for a different issue. I substituted the on/off panel from B to A. The unit came on. So I looked under a magnifiying glass at the panel A, and saw that oxidation on test points of the board had eaten away the traces! So I hardwired a 24ga wire from the on/off switch directly to the pad at the ribbon cable. Tacked down the wire with hot glue, and the system was returned to normal. Estimated cost, $50 labor,
otherwise it would have been
35 for keyboard
10 for shipping
100+ labor (not my charge, but what the shop charges)
and down for about a week and a half waiting.
Be very wary of Chinese designs (which most are) - seems no consideration is taken on repairs later, and if it is - it is made to be near impossible as they can. Such as extremely narrow separation between electrical potentials on DC jacks, an unskilled eye will not see a short after replacing. Now I have started taking my camera and macro lens to catalog intentional defects in designs.
Another tip! Throw No Motherboard away... you might need one small part later. Such is the case with DELL 600m/D600 RV1 and RV2 are like soldering grains of sand. When they fly off, POOF they are gone!
Last edited by Kegtapper : Mar 7th, 2008 at 9:17 am.
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Originally Posted by jbennet
16
i split the socket by trying to fit an agp card in it
LOOOL! That one is for the grandchildren.
I say what I see. If you find my words offensive, then you find reality offensive.
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why not use one of those pens that can draw traces
worked well for my xbox
worked well for my xbox
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james.bennet1@ntlworld.com
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techno t - Point taken, I won't assume anything or go replacing good parts just because the problem is common. I will, however, focus my first observations and tests on parts that commonly fail. For example, I will look for bad capacitors and test them. (As a side note, I have found that most of the time, you can test caps while on the board, contrary to what an earlier poster wrote. I know this because I pulled the same reading off the same capacitor before I desoldered it as I did afterwards.) When I asked if MOSFETs were a common problem in laptops, I was simply trying to verify if what I heard was true.
@all- Is there a way to test MOSFETs to determine if they are malfunctioning?
@all- Is there a way to test MOSFETs to determine if they are malfunctioning?
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Originally Posted by Kegtapper
techo t- I know exactly what you mean, sometimes it is not so easy to have a working model right next to you, or have the schematics. Thats where pure logic and reasoning comes in.
How I discoverd the biggest headaches with HP DV4000. The unit came in, NO POWER, NO LIGHTS. subsequent tests on the board had power in every circuit, it just wouldn't come in.
The next afternoon another came in for a different issue. I substituted the on/off panel from B to A. The unit came on. So I looked under a magnifiying glass at the panel A, and saw that oxidation on test points of the board had eaten away the traces! So I hardwired a 24ga wire from the on/off switch directly to the pad at the ribbon cable. Tacked down the wire with hot glue, and the system was returned to normal. Estimated cost, $50 labor,
otherwise it would have been
35 for keyboard
10 for shipping
100+ labor (not my charge, but what the shop charges)
and down for about a week and a half waiting.
Be very wary of Chinese designs (which most are) - seems no consideration is taken on repairs later, and if it is - it is made to be near impossible as they can. Such as extremely narrow separation between electrical potentials on DC jacks, an unskilled eye will not see a short after replacing. Now I have started taking my camera and macro lens to catalog intentional defects in designs.
Another tip! Throw No Motherboard away... you might need one small part later. Such is the case with DELL 600m/D600 RV1 and RV2 are like soldering grains of sand. When they fly off, POOF they are gone!
Chinese designs are a PAIN!!!!!!!1 cheap build quality and poor solder joints being made. And now with lead free coming in the poor solder quality is really affecting mainboard connections. BGA's are failing at a rate of knots and the whole thermal problems are getting worse as the lead free joints are more brittle then tin/lead soldering.
Damn cheap builds and lead free soldering really dont mix, I had a laptop in the other day, intermittant as hell. Seemed more stable once warm, struck as a poor solder joint somewhere, luckily saw that it had a few memory issues once it did boot so resoldered the lead free DIMM skts with normal tin/lead solder. Fixed it first time
however not all fixes are as easy as that, and lead free is making things a whole hell of a lot harder
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Soldering is the main price-setting factor for any piece of electronics. "Cheap" usually translates to "low quality soldering done here".
I say what I see. If you find my words offensive, then you find reality offensive.
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