74 replies to this topic

[was_jaclaz]

The really sad part is, that i already have bought the replacement.

Well, no, the really sad part is that you (just like most people) are "forced" to buy something new when a simple (or in the case of BGA, and of Lead-free BGA particularly, not-so-simple) fix could make you save some money and even for a very small amount, lower the overall impact on the environment.

And this only because a "stupid" technology has been developed to solder some connections together, instead of a simpler method or a "modular" one.

Funnily enough the geforce go cards used on notebooks are "modular", but you cannot find a replacement/spare part at a decent price and there is no "reconditioning" service worth the expense and trouble.

If you buy a notebook, do buy a MXM one (link to COMMERCIAL site) - exception made since there is a lot of info on it:
http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/index.html

What's in it for you?

Untill the arrival of MXM-Upgrade: not much. Some laptops could be fitted with a GPU of your choice, but that was about it. If you check out this video from NVIDIA, you are led to believe you can upgrade your laptop graphics card as easily as you would swap a PCMCIA card. Nothing could be further from the truth. First off all, the actual mechanical and thermal interfaces are more complicated compared to NVIDIA's vision, but that's not even the tough part.

The tough part wasthat you can't really buy these modules.

Why? Because if you are not happy with the graphic performance of your laptop, you have to buy a new one. If you would be able to buy an MXM card off Newegg or your local computer shop instead, that would be a transaction where the laptop manufacturers have nothing to gain, while they have lost the sale of a new laptop in the process.

And so they shield the market as much as they can. Very few manufactures even mention MXM. They carefully use the word 'module', or they mention nothing at all. And yet, more and more laptops are powered by MXM!

Though current prices are simply not worth it, if this "standard" (at least FIVE of them ):
http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/types.html
has some success, it may be possible in the future to get replacements at an acceptable price.

jaclaz

[MedEvil]

Well if you wanna steer the topic into that direction, then the sad part is that a completely useless mounting solution is used for a board that should be designed for a lot of mechanical stress.
Soldered legs through the board, will create contacts, which are much less likely to break due to mechanical stress.
A computer designed to be carried around, should have no trouble running for the intended 5 years life span, even when droped of a table 5 times a day.
Most of the sold junk, can't even take being put 'firmly' on a table 5 times, before breaking.

[fabiobassa]

I do agree totally with jaclaz, for years I tried to fight against bga since they don't allow quite at all a re-flow, a re-work, they are no modular, nothing of nothing, have worst heat dissipation since the legs of old chips were outside and help to heat dispersion.

All started with infamous ericsson t20 and his damned power amplifier, one of the first bga I saw.

But then u realize that if a thing could work for years, well , the industry will close because no more product are needed ( the ols still working...) , people lose work, the oil increases... chinese ppl will produce more junk and so on


Not a sad situatio.. a sad world

Back to your problem, jus a curiosity MedEvil
where are u located?
South Italy here, not so far from Naples

and u Jaclaz, if both you wanna tell it......

[was_jaclaz]

where are u located?
South Italy here, not so far from Naples

and u Jaclaz, if both you wanna tell it......

center, not so far from Florence.

Well if you wanna steer the topic into that direction...

No, not really, just remembering the "old times".

jaclaz

[MedEvil]

But then u realize that if a thing could work for years, well , the industry will close because no more product are needed ( the ols still working...) , people lose work, the oil increases... chinese ppl will produce more junk and so on


Not a sad situatio.. a sad world

Are you really that young? I thought to have read that you're in your 40ies.
Anyway, let me asure you, that the world worked just fine, before it became chic to throw away and buy new.
So less stuff was produced and sold, but more people made a living of fixing things.

When i was a kid and the tv set was broken, the technician actually started soldering single elements.
When i was young and the tv set was broken the technician would switch out whole boards. Even for something like a broken soldering point.
Today, if the tv set is broken and the guarantee has run out the technician tells me to buy a new one, it's cheaper.

Back to your problem, jus a curiosity MedEvil
where are u located?

North of you two, in Germany.

[MedEvil]

Went out during my lunch break to look for an infrared thermometer and a hotair gun.
An infrared thermometer seems to be something, i would need to order online, but i found this nice hotair gun with digital temerature and air flow setting.
Shouldn't that do the trick too, without the need for an infrared thermometer?

[fabiobassa]

Which nice air hot gun???

Link, photo??

Infrared thermometer, really never even seen one, lol

Fabio

[MedEvil]

Havn't paid too much attention to the exact name in the shop. But this seems to be the one, by the look and the features.

http://cgi.ebay.de/B...id=p3286.c0.m14

[fabiobassa]

Oh, no, not that kind of, lol


Look at this instead

http://cgi.ebay.it/s...id=p3286.c0.m14

[MedEvil]

That's a hotair soldering station.
In no reflux description, nor in any reflux video was ever such a thing used.
Always a hotair gun like the one i found, though usually a cheap one with the additional use of an infrared thermometer to keep the temparature rising at the correct value.

Also if warming up slowly is sooo important, how come the soldering station has only settings for 200 - 480 °C?

[fabiobassa]

Lol MedEvil , I use for those purpose exactly the one in the photo and wors fine. I use to re-work my components including bga's even if with a lot of care since I haven't a thermometer.. i use to stay low in air blowing and high in temperature, but starting to heat very far away from boards and then caming closer.

BTW, just hold the hot airgun away from the main board and with low air blown, and take care to don't deformate the plastics presents on the board ( i.e. the socket of processor is in plastic )

[MedEvil]

Guess i wont try tomorrow the fix, then.
Will go look tonight for some hotair soldering stations on the net.

While on teh topic of of CPU Socket. Do you know, how does that thing get soldered in?

[fabiobassa]

http://www.pcbtech.it/Kirsten.htm

http://www.industrys...it-77098-0.html

http://www.selettra....1030.251.0.html

http://www.benetec.c...ctronic/wls.php this one has a german page, too.



and very very interesting

http://en.wikipedia..../Wave_soldering

the nice thing is that the combined infrared warm-iron reworking station melts the sn but not the plastic

Fabio

[MedEvil]

Sorry, i don't understand the links to wave soldering systems.
If the CPU sockets arn't 'contact through' soldered, a wave soldering system would melt them, when they are soldered upside down.
And i also don't think you've meant it as an alternative to a hot air pistol.

[fabiobassa]

Sorry, i don't understand the links to wave soldering systems.
If the CPU sockets arn't 'contact through' soldered, a wave soldering system would melt them, when they are soldered upside down.
And i also don't think you've meant it as an alternative to a hot air pistol.

No medEvil this is the reason why I posted the link:

1) they are not melted
2) they aren't soldered upside down

Where I live there is a small factory that produces pcb's and boards, in smt too, and i visited it, and, great surprise, the board is inserted upside face and nothing is melted, not the sockets, not the zifs

And when the melted iron comes, ho my God what a warm comes out !!!!!!!

Don't ask me how this happens, just happens

[MedEvil]

Have come up now with a plan to test the board tomorrow, since i can't do much else, for if and which chip has the broken contact.
Will put a piece of wooden board under the PCB and a metal 'board' atop the chip and press those two together with moderate pressure. If there is a broken contact, this should ceate enough contact for proper working.

If this doesn't work, eighter more than one chip has a broken contakt or it's something different.

[fabiobassa]

Yes, this was exactly the 1st approach i suggested to you.

Let me know :-)

Fabio

[MedEvil]

Knew there was a reason, i didn't tried that clever test before.
There are a bunch of resistors with different thickness soldered to the underside of the PCB, just were the GPU and the Nothbridge are.
So there is no way, that i can create equal pressure across the whole surface of the chip.

Which brings me to my next question. Can the chip even be refluxed, if there are already things soldered to the opposite side of the PCB?

[fabiobassa]

Knew there was a reason, i didn't tried that clever test before.
There are a bunch of resistors with different thickness soldered to the underside of the PCB, just were the GPU and the Nothbridge are.
So there is no way, that i can create equal pressure across the whole surface of the chip.

Which brings me to my next question. Can the chip even be refluxed, if there are already things soldered to the opposite side of the PCB?

This is a mess situation:

usually all components before soldering are kept in place with a small amount of GLUE !!!

But I cannot guarantee for you that the glue is still valid !!

BTW, you will heat one side on the board, the heat should pass to the other side and melt the solder of other components..
Possibile, but highly improbable

[was_jaclaz]

And remember to put the aluminium foil around as a reflector...

jaclaz

[fabiobassa]

@MedEvil

P.S.
before " burning " your mb, don't you have something like a foam, a bending plastic, something that will take the same form of the components and will guarantee an uniform pressure??

And, really off topic, i see you have more than 2000 posts, lol ! What are you most interested in?

@jaclaz
hi jaclaz, I think the idea of booting XP is a bit harder than my possibilities.

I know I should fight because throught fightening I will achieve success, but is really a messy thing this xp booting. In 10 stick I looked at, not only one had the geometry ugual to another. One shows me 16/14 ?????????

Any usefull link , if exist ( and if exist , you will have since I call you the link bible, just kidding ), for instead booting at least windows 98 ( if works )

@ both you

fabio

[fabiobassa]

@MedEvil

fabiobassa, since you seem to be bit more geek than usual. There is a solution to enable USB boot on a computer which does not support it.
If the computer in question uses an Award BIOS or there is an Award BIOS available for it.

There exist al least 3 tools that allow to 'build' a 'own' Award BIOS.
Just include USB Boot in your BIOS and if that makes it too big. Throw something, you don't use, out.

this was an early answer you gave me, and I didn't pay much attention because wanting follow the usb chainloading.

But.. have you some link to those tools?

TY
Fabio

[MedEvil]

before " burning " your mb, don't you have something like a foam, a bending plastic, something that will take the same form of the components and will guarantee an uniform pressure??

Yes thought about using some foam that's soft enough to not damage the resistors but hard enough to create enough pressure over the whole surface of the chip.
But i don't have anything that fit's that discription and since we have a holiday or holy day today, no chance to buy something.

I somehow doubt that the resistors were put in place before the chips, so i don't think there will be glue.

This whole hing starts to annoy me! I catch myself, thinking about applying some pressure with a sledge hammer!

And, really off topic, i see you have more than 2000 posts, lol ! What are you most interested in?

I'm pretty much all over the place here, hence the many posts!

But most fun for me is to get something working that people say is impossible.





PS: Fabio, win98 is actually worst than XP/PE to get to boot in a non system specific way.

[was_jaclaz]

@jaclaz
hi jaclaz, I think the idea of booting XP is a bit harder than my possibilities.

I know I should fight because throught fightening I will achieve success, but is really a messy thing this xp booting. In 10 stick I looked at, not only one had the geometry ugual to another. One shows me 16/14 ?????????

Failure is NOT an option.

Why don't you start from scratch?
Choose one, just one of the 10 sticks, the smaller (i.e. 1 or 2 Gb) the better.
And start as I already suggested you n times by now with an easier goal, like the PE through the batch by cdob or the UBCD4WIN project?
It often happens that a "newbie" (no offence intended ) chooses a very difficult something to do, wants to do it all at once, and since it WON'T happen in the first few tries, simply loses confidence in his own capabilities.

Any usefull link , if exist ( and if exist , you will have since I call you the link bible, just kidding ), for instead booting at least windows 98 ( if works )

Sure, why not, it even works from an image loaded through grub4dos.

As always, I would suggest you a very minimal version of it, start from here:
http://www.boot-land...hp?showforum=53

jaclaz

[fabiobassa]

But most fun for me is to get something working that people say is impossible.

Oh, really I think on such these forum a lot of ppl as we are :-)

When I was 18, in my first car, I had my mobile telephone, ( I am a radio-amateur too, HAM) made of a transmitter , a receiver, a diplexer to use only one antenna, and at home the same equipment in reverse frequencies, a self-made dtmf receiver , a simple hang up -hang off circuitry and all my friends and people keep saying " impossible".
But it worked


@ jaclaz

not offended in any manner sure, my only problem is that you ( quite all ) speak of somethings as fresh water, and for me is quite arabic, lol , but of course me too, if I spoke of cdma or umts, or gsm qskf could be quite un-understable.

And yes I am starting from the most difficult, I know, but also before reading all those post I thought on a sort of chaining among dos.grub-xp and I didn't ever know of this topic.
So it is the most difficult, but because was my 1st idea, it should be also the most logical !!!! Not because of me, but because i discovere many many people working on it !!!

I will start from the scratch for sure , but if I can suggest , there should be a topic not editable from users, but only from admins, and discussion board, but all the new infos should be consensed in a pinned topic .
I know you follow my idea..do you know how many posts on this?
104 pages on usb friendly and 9 or more on non usb capable bios, and I don't know how many on bcd4win and so on!
So , le do some stones , not editable from user, and of course discussion boards on the topic, but sometimes is very difficult to remember where an info were achieved, even I someone prints the thread.
TY jaclaz fro your big patience, if you have a postepay will offer a coffe ( lo just kidding)
Fabio