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dead motherboards...

P

Papcina

Jan 1, 1970
0
hi people..

im interested in repairing computers motherboards.. mostly the older
ones ( based around socket 370, socket A and lower) and have some
questions... when there is a motherboard fried from a power surge, is
it worth trying repairing? what components usually die in such
situations? how to check all those SMD componentes and small ICs on
easiest way to find out if they work or no?

well, any info about such problems is needed... thanks in advance

bye
 
P

PeterD

Jan 1, 1970
0
hi people..

im interested in repairing computers motherboards.. mostly the older
ones ( based around socket 370, socket A and lower) and have some
questions... when there is a motherboard fried from a power surge, is
it worth trying repairing?

Never. There are zillions of these out there you can get for free, so
why try to fix one?
 
P

Papcina

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bilo je to Sat, 19 May 2007 08:56:29 -0500, kada je poznati "w9gb"
You will find that the economics of the repair parts and your time -- may
not make sense.

For your overall education (and a leading cause of many failures)
http://www.badcaps.net/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

yes ano about the capacitors... but what when a mobo gives no sign of
being alive? the capacitors r fine, bios is reflashed and no visible
sign of burnt stuff? how to find an error in that case?
FETs works normally, every other bigger chip is wroking fine...

any ideas where to check more?

im sentimentaly affected to this mbo :))
 
J

Jim Yanik

Jan 1, 1970
0
Never. There are zillions of these out there you can get for free, so
why try to fix one?

WHERE does one get these FREE motherboards?
 
W

w9gb

Jan 1, 1970
0
Papcina said:
Bilo je to Sat, 19 May 2007 08:56:29 -0500, kada je poznati "w9gb"


yes ano about the capacitors... but what when a mobo gives no sign of
being alive? the capacitors r fine, bios is reflashed and no visible
sign of burnt stuff? how to find an error in that case?
FETs works normally, every other bigger chip is wroking fine...

any ideas where to check more?

im sentimentaly affected to this mbo :))
Most computer motherboards are 4 layer and many are 6 layer -- so problems
may be present you can not see (but testing would --- takes time -- to find
bad component,etc.) START with Power Bus and go from there.
 
G

GPE

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Yanik said:
WHERE does one get these FREE motherboards?



For computers that old, check businesses that are doing tech refreshes.
Many of them -pay- to have their computers hauled away. And many of the
computers aren't that old.
 
J

Jeroni Paul

Jan 1, 1970
0
Papcina said:
yes ano about the capacitors... but what when a mobo gives no sign of
being alive? the capacitors r fine, bios is reflashed and no visible
sign of burnt stuff? how to find an error in that case?
FETs works normally, every other bigger chip is wroking fine...

any ideas where to check more?

Check the RAM. Those old DIMM slots suffer frequently from bent pins.
Also try another RAM stick (DIMMS must be in pairs).
Then try to replace the CPU, supply and video card.
 
J

Jerry G.

Jan 1, 1970
0
You will find that the economics of repairing old mother boards does not
make sense. The devices are all surface mounted, and the troubleshooting
and servicing requires extensive knowledge, sophisticated tools and
sophisticated equipment. Then there will be the problem if finding the
replacement parts.

You are best off to look around for older computers and rebuild them.
But, having older computers will be limited in their capability,
especially with the newer operating systems and software's. This is why
they are going to the landfills in the first place!

I think you should seriously look for something that is more profitable.
If fixing old computers was profitable, there would be many more
companies doing it!

--

Jerry G.


hi people..

im interested in repairing computers motherboards.. mostly the older
ones ( based around socket 370, socket A and lower) and have some
questions... when there is a motherboard fried from a power surge, is
it worth trying repairing? what components usually die in such
situations? how to check all those SMD componentes and small ICs on
easiest way to find out if they work or no?

well, any info about such problems is needed... thanks in advance

bye
 
P

Papcina

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bilo je to Sat, 19 May 2007 15:53:44 -0400, kada je poznati "Jerry G."
You will find that the economics of repairing old mother boards does not
make sense. The devices are all surface mounted, and the troubleshooting
and servicing requires extensive knowledge, sophisticated tools and
sophisticated equipment. Then there will be the problem if finding the
replacement parts.

You are best off to look around for older computers and rebuild them.
But, having older computers will be limited in their capability,
especially with the newer operating systems and software's. This is why
they are going to the landfills in the first place!

I think you should seriously look for something that is more profitable.
If fixing old computers was profitable, there would be many more
companies doing it!

xD lol... well in fact i dont want to get in bussines with nothing,
its just i have some old motherboards with no sign of life, which i
would like to repair... and a wonderful cubx mbo :))

thx for answers

bb
 
P

PeterD

Jan 1, 1970
0
WHERE does one get these FREE motherboards?

MOst any independent computer repair shop will do. THey frequently
have to pay to dispose of them, and are glad to give them away. Many
are the result of upgrades. The local shop generates a couple of them
a week, sometimes more. THey usualy have a pile of 20 or so in the
scrap pile at any time.
 
A

Andy Cuffe

Jan 1, 1970
0
yes ano about the capacitors... but what when a mobo gives no sign of
being alive? the capacitors r fine, bios is reflashed and no visible
sign of burnt stuff? how to find an error in that case?
FETs works normally, every other bigger chip is wroking fine...

any ideas where to check more?

im sentimentaly affected to this mbo :))


I've fixed a lot of dead motherboards by removing the CMOS battery for
a day or two. This has worked several times, even when the clear CMOS
jumper didn't help.
Andy Cuffe

[email protected]
 
P

Papcina

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bilo je to Sat, 19 May 2007 19:08:33 -0400, kada je poznati PeterD
MOst any independent computer repair shop will do. THey frequently
have to pay to dispose of them, and are glad to give them away. Many
are the result of upgrades. The local shop generates a couple of them
a week, sometimes more. THey usualy have a pile of 20 or so in the
scrap pile at any time.


it could be, but not in all countries over the world :(
 
D

DaveM

Jan 1, 1970
0
Andy Cuffe said:
I've fixed a lot of dead motherboards by removing the CMOS battery for
a day or two. This has worked several times, even when the clear CMOS
jumper didn't help.
Andy Cuffe

[email protected]

If a motherboard is showing no signs of life, how can you say that every other
bigger chip is working fine? If the board is dead, meaning that it won't boot
up, or even run POST tests, then how are you checking the "bigger chips?
You can't assume anything in this case... everything has to be verified
conclusively. The only way that I can think of doing that in the case of a dead
motherboard is to unsolder the chips and put them on a known good board. Given
the lack of service information on any of the PC boards that have been produced
in the past 25 years, it's shooting in the dark.

--
Dave M
MasonDG44 at comcast dot net (Just substitute the appropriate characters in the
address)

Life is like a roll of toilet paper; the closer to the end, the faster it goes.
 
J

James Sweet

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Yanik said:
WHERE does one get these FREE motherboards?

--


I gave away a pile of them on Craigslist, I probably have some more laying
around I need to dump off on there.
 
A

Andy Cuffe

Jan 1, 1970
0
If a motherboard is showing no signs of life, how can you say that every other
bigger chip is working fine? If the board is dead, meaning that it won't boot
up, or even run POST tests, then how are you checking the "bigger chips?
You can't assume anything in this case... everything has to be verified
conclusively. The only way that I can think of doing that in the case of a dead
motherboard is to unsolder the chips and put them on a known good board. Given
the lack of service information on any of the PC boards that have been produced
in the past 25 years, it's shooting in the dark.

There's no way to know. Fortunately, the big chips are very reliable.
They don't normally fail unless something really bad happened (like
excessive voltage from a bad power supply, or someone shorting
something out). Testing the chips is completely impractical. The
soldering equipment alone would cost thousands.

The way to trouble shoot a motherboard is to eliminate the few things
you can fix before scrapping the board. Once you eliminate the simple
stuff, it doesn't really matter whether it's a bad chipset chip, bad
internal connection on the board, or some other unfixable problem.

I've repaired a lot of boards by replacing exploded caps. I've also
replaced melted ATX power connectors. On one board, I even replaced
some bad voltage regulator transistors (they were over heated because
of bad caps). If you know the board suffered from a failed BIOS
flash, you can reprogram the flash chip (it helps if it's in a
socket).
Andy Cuffe

[email protected]
 
G

Gary Tait

Jan 1, 1970
0
it could be, but not in all countries over the world :(

Around here, it is not worth upgrading the innards of older computes, as
they don't meet modern power and cooling requiremnts, and the cases don't
"match" modern fashions, so old PCs are thrown out whole, and new ones
bought.
 
H

Heinz Schmitz

Jan 1, 1970
0
Gary said:
Around here, it is not worth upgrading the innards of older computes,
---> as they don't meet modern power and cooling requiremnts, and
---> the cases don't "match" modern fashions,
so old PCs are thrown out whole, and new ones bought.

If we are asked, in the year 2525, what we did with all energy,
then we can gladly answer: We built things and dumped them.

(SCNR) Regards,
H.
 
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