Battle scars

[Zerix01]

My God you guys are industrious!! Here I am praying for a board to burn up or show any sign of failure so I can justify some new swag...and here you folks are fixing them!!!

I like my computer and feel it would be a waste of material to replace it with a similar board, when this gets replaced it will be for an upgrade not a repair. And I can't afford an upgrade . And yeah I at least am a bit of a tree hugger. I have been purchasing green power credits long before the general public knew what that was and my ultimate goal with my new house will be to put up some solar panels and maybe some small wind turbines. This will help offset all my power consumption and up the resale value .

A good trick here is to add some 60/40 solder to the existing lead-free solder. It will drop the melting point as it alloys in, and you don't have to bring the lead-free solder up to liquid for it to alloy in.

Okay so bare with my noobness here. So I should melt some of my leaded solder on to the solder points then melt all of it and remove all the solder?

Also what is a good wattage? I have a 15 watt iron still in its box. I wonder if I can sill return it if I need a higher wattage one.

PM me if you need the caps or the work done. I stock Rubycon Ultra low ESR motherboard grade caps that will do the job right. I started rebuilding boards back when all of the Epox Slot A Athlons that we were selling started blowing up just past the warranty.

Well I'll let you and torin3 hash out which ones will be best for me

I have only had one customer bring a board in that caught fire

How bad was it? I still have my system cranking along as usual, and I haven't had any GPU stability issues since just after the cleaning.

 

[madhatter256]

Looks like the chokes are also burnt up, so just replacing the capacitor won't be enough.

I would inspect the whole motherboard for any other burnt components and swollen capacitors.

Also, if the power supply is out of warranty, then I would visually inspect the inside for the possibility of swollen caps.
I've seen a lot of motherboards with swollen caps caused by a psu with swollen caps.

 

[torin3]

Okay so bare with my noobness here. So I should melt some of my leaded solder on to the solder points then melt all of it and remove all the solder?

Pretty much. I usually make sure my iron tip is freshly cleaned and tinned, then I put it on the solder point. Give it a few seconds, the touch the fresh 60/40 solder to the point. If it doesn't start melting it, I'll move it over and just touch the iron for a second to start it melting. Don't add a lot, as you are going to need to remove it, but it doesn't take much to reduce the melting point.

Also what is a good wattage? I have a 15 watt iron still in its box. I wonder if I can sill return it if I need a higher wattage one.

I'd go at least 30, if not 40 watts if you are going to be working on motherboards. I've got a 50 watt soldering station, and haven't had a problem with it, though I'll usually add 60/40 to help cut down on the need for extra wattage when working with lead-free solder.

Well I'll let you and torin3 hash out which ones will be best for me

Rubycons are good caps. I mainly go for Panasonics for ease of purchase. Rubys are a little harder to get, but not that hard. If Computek wants to do it, he has probably had 100 times the experience I've had.

Looks like the chokes are also burnt up, so just replacing the capacitor won't be enough.

I would inspect the whole motherboard for any other burnt components and swollen capacitors.

Also, if the power supply is out of warranty, then I would visually inspect the inside for the possibility of swollen caps.
I've seen a lot of motherboards with swollen caps caused by a psu with swollen caps.

Woops...mised the chokes. Computek will probably be the better choice to fix it.

Also, the part about PSUs with bad caps taking out motherboards is definately worth mentioning twice!

 

[Zerix01]

Looks like the chokes are also burnt up, so just replacing the capacitor won't be enough.

I would inspect the whole motherboard for any other burnt components and swollen capacitors.

Also, the part about PSUs with bad caps taking out motherboards is definately worth mentioning twice!

Err... I may have found a half way motherboard, more than just a replacement, and a good path for a future upgrade. It supports my current CPU all the way up to AM3, and I can still use my DDR2 RAM.

What do you guys think of Kingwin power supplies?

 

[madhatter256]

Kingwins. They are alright. Not as great as corsair, but not bad at all.

That motherboard looks kick ***. Hmm, I might buy that if my biostar doesn't make it through RMA....

 

[deadlysyn]

Something to consider when removing through hole components on a motherboard. There is a lot of copper ground plane in the inner layers that will sink all the heat from the solder iron or solder sucker. If you don't have enough wattage from the solder iron, you might dwell too long on the outside hole pads and cause them to lift off the board. Motherboards are much more difficult to solder than say a normal 2 or 4 layer consumer electronics board.

I think this is why S_N recommended using desoldering braid instead of a solder vacuum. I would try looking for the exact post, but it has been a couple years since I have read it. It may even be in one of the Volt Modding Sticky's.