Can I just grab a cheap soldering kit and an adjustable heat gun to get started with board repair?
I'm getting sick and fucking tired of having to replace an entire motherboard because one component isn't working. And today I found an old mp3 player which I stopped using years ago because the microUSB porn wasn't working, so I figure I could probably replace the port myself.
What does Sup Forums use for their own repairs?
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I repaired a 10yo samy 226bw with a 18$ chink iron and 1$ worth of components.
micro USB connectors are small pitch (
If you're dealing with SMD components you'll probably need a few more things, like tweezers and some type of good magnification. Also get
good ventilation.
Soldering kit+heat gun sounds like it could work. See if you can send it back to the company with warranty info.
>the microUSB porn wasn't working
You will need an air filter unless you want cancer.
Literally, lead is scary as fuck and a fan is not enough.
Who cares? You will still die
look at this soyboy not enjoying the sweet smell of 60/40 lead/tin rosin core solder (non-RoHs II compliant, of course)
You probably will want a soldering iron. If you plan one doing a fair amount of repairs the irons with adjustable heat are nice and if you can get a few tips of various sizes for them.
Basically you are either working with small parts where you need just a little heat to melt the solder or bigger parts that are often attached to really large power/ground planes that suck up a lot of heat.
The later is actually a fairly common problem because often the (cheap) electrolytic caps on the power planes fail. The good news is that these are parts that don't get damaged from prolonged heat from soldering. The trouble is that sometimes your iron can't sink enough heat to melt the solder and you have to to janky stuff like using two soldering irons.
Literally just finished soldering some nickle strips to a lithium ion battery and for the love of god buy a bigger and more powerful soldering iron if you are going to do anything that needs a lot of solder. A cheap chinese soldering iron will work just fine for small board repairs, however if you are repairing things like power supplies (which you might have to) I would not skimp out. What a fucking nightmare it is to use an underpowered soldering iron.
How do you learn to solder?
yes. Ive been using a cheapshit weller I got from walmart for $10 over a decade ago.
>I'm getting sick and fucking tired of having to replace an entire motherboard because one component isn't working.
I am 41 years old, I have had probably 15-20 computers in the last 22 years and repaired over 100 for friends and at work
I have never once seen a part of a motherboard fail
are you fucking serious?
did you repair 20 computers in 1995 and then go to jail, live in complete isolation, and then get released 5 minutes before you posted this?
there is like a 30 year span and counting of everything that was made with a capacitor just magically stops working for some unknown reason.
also get a desolderer so you can salvage parts from shit you don't use anymore
>are you fucking serious?
yes i am fucking serious, also I work in IT
I have never in my life seen an actual part on a motherboard fail, much less a part that could be fixed by soldering
Well, I have seen some computers just black the fuck out and assumed it was something with the wiring to the CPU or RAM but that is something you would never be able to fix with a soldering iron
I cannot imagine anyone working with consumer grade computers running into mother board issues that could be fixed with a soldering iron so often that they would be "sick and tired" of replacing motherboards over such an issue
I think OP is wrong or full of shit
Well then you are incredibly lucky. I've only been working on computers for about 15 years but I've seen at least 3 motherboards fail. Hell the very first part I ever had fail on me was a motherboard.
>Well then you are incredibly lucky. I've only been working on computers for about 15 years but I've seen at least 3 motherboards fail. Hell the very first part I ever had fail on me was a motherboard.
ok so 3 in 15 years i can believe that
not worth trying to solder them together though
If you have anything with electrolytic capacitors they will fail eventually. Well made circuits with good caps will can last quiet a while but they fail. That's how my guitar amps have broken do to pretty damn old caps.
Cheap electronics will fail faster because they use cheap parts. Pic related, it's a power supply PCB for a newish flat screen TV I brought back from the dead by replacing the caps. There's no reason. Why you also couldn't do the same thing in a computer/mother board.
Other parts are harder to fix because you have to power the circuit to debug it. I had to chuck the PCB in a speaker because I didn't have a good way to power it for debug without the wall outlet. I don't have equipment to work at mains voltage safely so I just ordered a whole knew PCB. That said, it probably was a 2 dollar part (probably a BJT or op amp) that was broken.
Two motherboards failed me and always the powersupply part more precise the electrolytic caps and they are easy to solder and theres even a name for the common reason, capacitor plague, goole it
I have been doing this for over 20 years and have a soldering iron and I do fix shit with it. Mainly wires people have torn out or frayed.
Specifically computer motherboards I cannot imagine being fixed much past physical damage of someone pulling out or bending a port with a soldering iron, I don't see them fail in a way that could be repaired with any frequency
Rossman pls go away
I have two motherboards sitting right here that have leaking caps. one has the caps near the cpu leaking, about a dozen of them. Im sure if I looked at the others closely Ill find more have leaking caps.
I think you are either baiting, or you dont have the experience you think you do with this stuff. working in it isnt the same as working in the field that fixes this shit. Ive seen people in the it department fail to identify ports on a motherboard, spend 15 minutes googling it, and then get back to me having identified it as a thing that exists only in star trek.
but most likely I think youre trying to have a giggle.
and are also canadian.
not baiting
I have just not seen this happen, I know a lot of people who work in IT and never ever see them with their iron out hovering over a motherboard
I also have been on this site for about 10 years and have never really seen a single thread about anyone fixing a motherboard with solder, much less it being a common issue or theme
Get a cheap chink station off ebay or aliexpress or some shit
>implying a ~300c soldering iron is hot enough to vaporize lead which has a 1749c boiling point. It's just flux.
Chinese 858D hot air guns are ok for soldering smaller BGA parts.
As for soldering irons, get something with temperature control at least.
Yeah but im not an IT professional or anything else. I'm a hobbyist. All told in those 15 years I've probably built half a dozen machines for myself and worked on maybe twice that number of PCs for family and friends. 3 motherboards in that sample size is pretty significant. And there is shit that can go out on a motherboard that can be replaced by someone with the proper tools and skills much more cheaply than just going out and buying a new board. Like a capacitor for example.
why does nobody on here ever talk about soldering motherboards?
Why have I built 20+ gaming computers for myself and others and maintained them over the course of 2 decades and never seen this happen?
out of about 10 computers you have had 3 motherboards fail in a way you could fix with a soldering iron
that's fucking weird
thats because you are on a marketing and video came board, 95% of the people here are incompetent manchildren, and of that 95% some like to larp as system admins.
and asfor it fields, its my understanding that places either a, often have warranty agreements with manufacturers to have defective shit replaces, or b, its cheaper and/or more efficient to just throw the busted shit away and replace it with something else to get on with business.
heres a motherboard with bad caps.
its a literal epidemic.
If you built a gaming PC you probably bought parts that are overrated properly and higher quality. They don't skimp on parts to save a dollar or two. Plus your replacing the computers frequently. Many of these failures take a while to occur, and may happen outside the practical useful life of the part.
If you where building budget systems you'd probably see more failures.
That is mostly true. Also I have always worked in offices that buy decent computers and don't let them get super old and out of date.
also this. got two power supplies sitting right here with leaking caps.. already fixed a monitors power supply cause of leaking caps. have another monitor that probably has bad caps in its power supply, identical the first one. atleast 2 motherboards with bad caps.
Im not even in the it field. this is just what I have sitting here.
>the microUSB porn wasn't working, so I figure I could probably replace the port myself.
>Ventilation
God you people really are a bunch of weak lunged soyboys, a bit of solder smoke never hurt anyone, I've been soldering and 3d printing I'm and in my bedroom with no ventilation for the past 2-4 years and have never had a problem
>ok so 3 in 15 years i can believe that
>not worth trying to solder them together though
How often do you switch motherboards? 3 in 15 years is probably just about what I've had.
wow youre dumb
I would avoid it if I could. I work at a place that still builds electronics with leaded parts because tin whiskering would be extremely unacceptable. I wouldn't do work like that without a a hood full time unless I wanted cancer. That said, a few sniffs of files each year is won't kill you any where near as fast as driving a car will.
Don't listen to this faggot. The temperature at which lead vaporizes is far higher than a soldering iron puts out. The fumes coming off of solder are from the rosin flux burning off, which isn't great for you to breath either but a small fan blowing it away from your face is more than enough.
You completely avoided BOTH capacitor plagues that occurred since the late 90s?
Since all the boardrepairfags are here, I'd just like to ask... if my motherboard, video card, logic board, etc. isn't working, and I don't see any visual evidence of a problem (like a blown capacitor) how the fuck do I figure out what the exact problem is?
>>I have never once seen a part of a motherboard fail
I'm calling bullshit. There's no way you've been repairing computers since the 90s and never ran into a leaking or ruptured cap.
By probing. If you're lucky it's a continuity or voltage issue you can suss out with a multimeter. If you're unlucky you might need an oscilliscope to figure out which chip has fucked itself and is putting out an unstable or otherwise garbage signal.
Depends on how serious you get into it.
For Hobby i would just get a Cheap Soldering station
If you get more serious pick up a Weller soldering station. Great quality and made to last.
I would suggest against a pen since you dont get temp control and theres a chance you cause damage to the board.
Any good tutorials or reading material for diagnosing a motherboard with a multimeter?
The damned thing won't go into POST even.
>If you have anything with electrolytic capacitors they will fail eventually.
bastards today use this caps everywhere.
almost ALL motherboards for am4 and for 1151-2 have them. even some server boards have this shitty electrolytic caps for "audio".
have them.
I'm happy one user knows his shit out of all those replies.