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You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

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    #1

    You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

    Wrong. I have here a low-end Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo. An absolute pile of turd. Celeron M 440 1.86GHz, 768MB RAM (1GB, but it seems the onboard video lends itself to a rather generous 256MB), S3 video, only one speaker...

    Would freeze upon trying to boot. Suspected HDD, tried to run HDD Regenerator, it failed to recognize the controller. Ran Victoria - scan came up clean. When trying the seek test i lifted the machine so i could get out of bed - and it froze with some flickering pixels on screen. Hey wait a second...

    Rebooted it and hey presto - it booted into Windows. As soon as i moved it tho it froze with subtly flickering colors. The colors almost look like the LCD ribbon was bad - but there's no way a bad LCD ribbon can freeze a computer, so i'm definitely looking at a failed video chip. Today's menu will be S3 graphics. Yum.

    RoHS sucks.
    Last edited by Th3_uN1Qu3; 10-31-2011, 03:05 AM.
    Originally posted by PeteS in CA
    Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
    A working TV? How boring!
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

    Well well well, I never knew S3 graphics would get hot enough to crack RoHS solder. I've come accross a few motherboard with VIA chipsets and onboard S3 Savage graphics. Even without a heat sink, they would only get warm to touch, although if they're using desktop graphics in a laptop, that might just do it.

    Reminds me of an old ASUS laptop I saw at work once. It had a 3.2GHz P4 Prescott desktop CPU. It The fan would always fun really loud and if you closed the lid while it was running, it would overheat and shut off.
    I love putting bad caps and flat batteries in fire and watching them explode!!

    No wonder it doesn't work! You installed the jumper wires backwards

    Main PC: Core i7 3770K 3.5GHz, Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP, 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600, 240GB Intel 335 Series SSD, 750GB WD HDD, Sony Optiarc DVD RW, Palit nVidia GTX660 Ti, CoolerMaster N200 Case, Delta DPS-600MB 600W PSU, Hauppauge TV Tuner, Windows 7 Home Premium

    Office PC: HP ProLiant ML150 G3, 2x Xeon E5335 2GHz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB Intel 530 SSD, 2x 250GB HDD, 2x 450GB 15K SAS HDD in RAID 1, 1x 2TB HDD, nVidia 8400GS, Delta DPS-650BB 650W PSU, Windows 7 Pro

    Comment

      #3
      Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

      Now it sometimes works, sometimes won't even power up and beeps angrily at me. If i press hard on the right side (where the heatsink is) it runs fine. Definitely failed solder.

      Oh yes i do remember the P4 desktop replacements. Unless you lived in Alaska or had air conditioning they were unusable.
      Originally posted by PeteS in CA
      Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
      A working TV? How boring!

      Comment

        #4
        Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

        I honestly don't know what drugs ASUS were on when they decided to put a prescott CPU in a laptop. They're hard enough to cool in desktops. I have seen a couple of those desktop replacments with northwood CPUs, though, and some were actually OK, even here in Aus.
        I love putting bad caps and flat batteries in fire and watching them explode!!

        No wonder it doesn't work! You installed the jumper wires backwards

        Main PC: Core i7 3770K 3.5GHz, Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP, 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600, 240GB Intel 335 Series SSD, 750GB WD HDD, Sony Optiarc DVD RW, Palit nVidia GTX660 Ti, CoolerMaster N200 Case, Delta DPS-600MB 600W PSU, Hauppauge TV Tuner, Windows 7 Home Premium

        Office PC: HP ProLiant ML150 G3, 2x Xeon E5335 2GHz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, 120GB Intel 530 SSD, 2x 250GB HDD, 2x 450GB 15K SAS HDD in RAID 1, 1x 2TB HDD, nVidia 8400GS, Delta DPS-650BB 650W PSU, Windows 7 Pro

        Comment

          #5
          Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

          Here's what we get for cooling the northbridge/GPU... Are you shittin me? Btw that black thing in the middle is a rubber foot making sure the NB heatsink presses on the cover when it's on, basically guaranteeing the board is going to flex when the laptop is moved. Outrageous.

          After i took the board out i realized why they put that piece of rubber in: the board is ridiculously thin and flexes very easily, so they thought it's gonna provide some support. It's dead now btw.

          Going to return this as "not worth fixing". Searching ebay.co.uk found 16 listings, 2 of which were for cables, 13 dead boards and only one good board listed for what it isn't worth. Googling for "amilo li 1705 motherboard" finds a number of people with the same issue, so a new board will just die again eventually... Consumerism at its finest. It lived past its warranty... and that was it.
          Attached Files
          Originally posted by PeteS in CA
          Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
          A working TV? How boring!

          Comment

            #6
            Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

            The owner has no use for a broken laptop, so i get to keep it for the time being. I guess i'll be giving a shot at reballing the sucker... i'll order some stencils and leaded solder balls and see what happens.

            In this case i think the reason is mechanical rather than thermal. The mainboard is WAY too thin.
            Originally posted by PeteS in CA
            Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
            A working TV? How boring!

            Comment

              #7
              Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

              Originally posted by c_hegge View Post
              I honestly don't know what drugs ASUS were on when they decided to put a prescott CPU in a laptop. They're hard enough to cool in desktops.
              Sony did that too. My sister's old laptop has a 2.8 GHz P4 Prescott in it. Surprisingly, it doesn't seem to run hot at all, but it sure is crazy loud, though. My guess is that the heatsinks must be of decent size. Then again, that laptop wights almost as much as a SFF desktop, so they better be. And the power brick... it really is a brick. I expect nothing less, though - after all something has got to feed that power hungry CPU. I'm actually surprised it's only rated for 95W.

              Comment

                #8
                Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

                Managed to get the chipset off but i think i damaged it (stripped some pads) so i'll have to order a new one. On the positive side, i cleaned up the board real nice and there's no damage to it. And look what i found on ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1x-VIA-VN8...item4aab76a3a9 I like how it sounds. A chipset with Balls.

                Just drop in, heat or bake, done.
                Last edited by Th3_uN1Qu3; 11-05-2011, 06:13 AM.
                Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                A working TV? How boring!

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

                  Originally posted by Th3_uN1Qu3 View Post
                  And look what i found on ebay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1x-VIA-VN8...item4aab76a3a9 I like how it sounds. A chipset with Balls.
                  A manly chipset, I see . Does it like beer too?

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

                    What are you using for reflow???
                    "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

                    -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

                      Depending on my mood, an average hot air station, or an average oven and a temperature probe. I think i'll be using the oven for this one.
                      Originally posted by PeteS in CA
                      Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
                      A working TV? How boring!

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: You thought only nvidia needed reflow?

                        Do you have that Kingbo tack flux they use to do reballs or you just use the regular stuff?

                        Interesting you were able to get a "pre-balled" chip... Balling a chip would be a nightmare without a stencil and some sort of vice to hold the whole thing. And you do absolutely need the tacky solder if you're going to ball it yourself.
                        "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

                        -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

                        Comment

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