Need some help - replacing SDRAM slot on...

[liaisons]

Hey guys! Great site, I'm glad you are all tearing away at the bad caps. I don't have bad caps... but I do have a problem and need some help.

I just bought a Supermicro P3TDL3 (dual 370s)... I got it cheap... ~$20.

The thing doesn't work. It has a bad SDRAM slot on it, the DIMM 1 slot. I don't know who fu*ked with it or why, but it looks like one of the pins was bent or broken off. They then proceeded to attempt to fix it, so it looks. They took out a small part of the plastic (on the SDRAM slot) and bent another pin in the process.

The motherboard seems to work fine, though after hitting the power button I get one beep. Memory error.

I want to replace this SDRAM slot, but I don't know where to buy the right one. I also need to get a good soldering iron and station, but not too expensive please. Also, what temps should I set the iron to when taking off the old SDRAM slot? I WOULD use a 'solder sucker' (thats what we called it back when I used to do stuff like this) to remove the old solder, correct?

I do have experience in the past w/ soldering. Not too much, but I'm confident!

Appreciate it guys,
Stephen

[stretch0069]

Ouch. Well...first off, I would not recommend the solder sucker. I replaced a ZIF socket (yes...I know), and the solder sucker.....well.....sucked.

I have access to a real nice PACE kit, but its pretty expensive. In the past, I've done a bit of surface mount work with one. The station has a good solder extractor and works great for the smaller stuff.

For the SDRAM sockets I would recommend using a good desoldering station. Trust me....it will make life MUCH easier.

As for the socket....you can probably get a replacement at Mouser or Digikey.


Normally I would offer to help, but I'm heading to school in a couple weeks and won't have access to a good soldering/desoldering station.


Unless of course you live close to VA and get it to me by the weekend.

[sulbert]

The thing doesn't work. It has a bad SDRAM slot on it, the DIMM 1 slot. I don't know who fu*ked with it or why, but it looks like one of the pins was bent or broken off. They then proceeded to attempt to fix it, so it looks. They took out a small part of the plastic (on the SDRAM slot) and bent another pin in the process.

The motherboard seems to work fine, though after hitting the power button I get one beep. Memory error.

So the board does not boot at all, even if you put memory in "good" slots?

I want to replace this SDRAM slot, but I don't know where to buy the right one.

I personally would not buy it, just take another dead board from my junk pile and my heat gun and there it is. But that's me...

[Preowner]

Ouch, thats 168 pins to desolder and resolder.

Like asked before.. this prevents the board from posting? Are the pins touching or is that because you have a ram stick in it? If you can do without 1 of the 4 sockets Id say try to remove the offending pins and leave it at that. The more you mess with the board the more prone it is to fail, and thats an expensive board to lose. Still ~$300 new, I think, for pretty old tech.

[kc8adu]

you must have reg ecc sdram.
you must fill a bank with 2 dimms
so put 2 matching reg ecc dimms into 3&4
make sure nothing is touching in the mangled socket.
iirc this is a tualatin only board
you need p3s 512k chips.
it may run a tulatin celeron in 1 socket to test.
and i have replaced dimm slots here.you need good desoldering gear or forget it.
heatgunning a junk board to pull a part is fine.
i have the proper stuff to do this right if you just gotta have both banks working.
i bet topcat does too.

[liaisons]

Hey, thanks for all of the information! I guess I won't turn unsoldering the current one. I'll try to use the 3 dimms that are good.


kc8adu:
You are saying that I MUST have 2 dimms in for it to boot? and they must be identical?


I appreciate the help guys, thanks a bunch!
Stephen

[kc8adu]

iirc all the serverworks based boards run interleaved so you 4 slots are 2 banks of 2
so if slot 1 is damaged try using 3 and 4

[Topcat]

If memory serves me correct, that board is based on the VIA Pro266 chipset, supporting Tualatin CPU's (I had one a while back). It does not require population of 2 DIMM's per bank, and interleaving can be disabled. It just doesn't perform as well running on one, but it should run. I don't remember if it required ECC RAM or not, but I do know it would run on one DIMM.