well this has been interesting

[Uranium-235]

I know, I'm recapping obviously bad caps, with a bad brand, but that seems to be the cheapest solution right now. And I know, you're supposed not to take them out of a bad board, but, I did. They look fine, but I know, you can't always tell by looks. But I don't have the time to order them from bc, or money to buy them from mouser (after checking their site, they want 10 for like $80). BS

so anyways, it's been a long time since I did any soldering. Last time was like...10 years ago.

The soldering iron that came with my pc repair kit wasn't hot enough. It's 35W, and it's also on a UL recall list, which made me feel just great

so my dad found his variable temp iron. I eventually got it turned up full way, and it still had problems getting this solder to melt.

So he found this other iron of his (he's been doing electronics since he was young, and worked with them for several years, so he has a ton of stuff). It was hot enough. Apparently this board uses some pretty high temp stuff.

Instead of using a sucker, which didn't really work well ($9 aluminum from radio shack). He suggested I use a wick. The only wick I had, wasn't flux coated. He searched and eventually found some old flux of his.

using flux with the wick seemed to work ok, but it made a mess. I don't really care cause I'm taking them off a dead board, but I don't want this on the board I'm fixing.

it seems the easiest and safest (safest = least amount of time with the tip on the board/cap lead) is just standing the board up vertically (mounted in one way or another so something doesn't slip), and putting the tip on the edge of the cap lead off the board and just pushing down or up on the cap, pulling the lead out when the solder melts. This seems to be the most effective way of taking them out.

I bought the bad board from this guy running a computer shop. Had 12 of the right kind I need (just needed 10). It was $5. They're OST I.Q. :/

it's the only hope these people have of getting this board fixed. These people don't have much money. Ether try to recap it and hope it works, or get a new board, and cause it's a HP with the bios tag, I wouldn't be able to use the Winxp install that came with the computer, and that would be another $90, in addition to $69 for a decent board from newegg.

oh just an fyi to the admin, having the bart moon icon next to the text window, is very distracting :P

[linuxguru]

Re: well this has been interesting

From the frying pan into the fire - OST I.Q. aren't particularly good caps, and things wouldn't have been helped by applying high heat to desolder them, followed by another spot of heat to solder them.

Your best bet would have been to source good new Japanese caps either from the owner of this site, from the classifeds section of this site, EBay merchants or at a hamfest/swap meet - any of those would have been less expensive than retail.

[Uranium-235]

Re: well this has been interesting

I had no choice as far as the heat goes, this board's solder is just a pain. The heat is applied very quickly. My father said it *should* be ok.

I wish I could get higher quality caps. Mainly, I'm not sure if the caps are the only problem with this board. I don't know, maybe if I get it working with the crap caps, I'll get some good ones and recap it again (albeit risky to I know).

what the board would do, as I mentioned in a previous post is:

I would turn the soft power on, and you could hear a little (blip, not beep) from the system speaker, the cpu fan would spin for a second, then I would hear another blip from the system speaker, and the cpu fan would stop, but the PSU would stay on. Another thing I noticed is if I took the ram out, it would stay on, and give the normal ram missing beep. But with the ram in, it would do the same weird thing mentioned above.

and it's not the psu, cause I tried more then one PSU on it

[Uranium-235]

Re: well this has been interesting

well, it does basically the same thing after recapping. I'm guessing there's more then caps that's wrong with it. Well it was worth a try

[Fizzycapola]

Re: well this has been interesting

Could you not have shaved down the tip to boost it's thermal rating perhaps, and shave down solder if possible so the heat doesn't leak about. I remember using a 40W in mid-winter I did ok millimeter by millimeter it took about 20 minutes per capacitor operation. The end result was very good because of how slowly the procedure was performed and reinforced my learning less forgetably. Although I could have used more ventillation I think after eight hours I was a bit sleepy. I also noticed inhaling lots of metallic toxins can give you wierd ideas (aswell as kill you/damage your DNA/kill your pets etc), like wanting to keep adding solder to a joint indefinately for no sane reason. Bash Bash Bash Bash

Since using 60W iron (I couldn't find a clean new 50W for a price I wanted) I have opposite issue, if I'm not super turbo fast on crazy hyper coffee tracks just curl in less than seconds and through holes fall out all over the place (I notice some through holes are quite special with rubber rims - I presume to disconnect vibration).

Ammendment: Might need to re-coat the tip if filing it down (tip tinner?)

[Uranium-235]

Re: well this has been interesting

this was my dads old iron, I didn't want to screw with it. The second one he had me use is older then he is. The iron and the tip is like from the 40's

[Spacedye69]

Re: well this has been interesting

What model # is the board? Did you replace ALL the caps (especially around the ram slots)?

[Uranium-235]

Re: well this has been interesting

the board I'm replacing? or the one I'm getting the caps from?

yeah I replaced all 10. I'm only guessing my soldering was less then par and I shorted the power lines (albeit when I tested it, I got no indication of burning or smoking). Or, when the caps went out, they took some other parts with them.

[Spacedye69]

Re: well this has been interesting

Yea, the board you are replacing.