Re: Good Price On Desoldering Braid

Re Suckers, whenever I empty mine I wonder about all that lead. The powder that comes out is extremely fine, like talcum powder, and it's mostly lead. When you trigger the suck and the air whooshes in, in goes the lead. When you recharge it though, the air inside the chamber is pushed out the front, probably with an invisible cloud of powdered lead. Gotta wonder.

Braid avoids the problem, but make sure you get the kind with flux in it. Solder likes flux.

Re: Tips on Dell Latitude D630 system board?

Assuming it got wet when it was running, liquids can really, really mess up a laptop board. It's one thing that some repairshops will refuse to even try to fix.

Look very closely for some eight-pin IC MOSFETs in SOIC packages, probably with 'IR' in the part number. They might show signs of overheating or might even be cracked underneath. Smell them. I've seen them blown right off a motherboard by water shorts. You can also get a handful of similarly blown transistors, zeners, diodes, etc.
A bigger chip like a power...

Re: Optiquest Q9 no power

I fixed an Optiquest Q7, the 17 inch version, just last week, which had the same power supply. The only cap doming up was also the CapXon 1000/16v; I replaced it from stock and the monitor started working again. (I also had the G sticker on the 220!)

Ordered some of the others that I didn't have and replaced them all a couple days later. I also replaced the big one because it measured esr well over three times what a new one was.

Actually a Viewsonic, right? Very cheaply made unit. The shield over the PSU is made of beer-can...

Re: Cap Broken Off-Board Still Works

I've seen several motherboards where the main filter caps for one or more of the voltages is a string of caps in parallel. They will generally be all the same value and in a tight row. Check the tracks to confirm. Therefore if you lose one without shorting it, you might not notice the loss.

Maybe they do this because medium sized caps are made in enormous volumes and five or six of them are still cheaper than one big one. It would also keep the height down.

Re: Capxon Capacitors?

On the weekend I picked up an Viewsonic 17" LCD monitor cheap which I've fixed already. Replaced a couple of Capxon's that had a bit of crusty brown residue on top. Monitor was a little short of four years old. Not a bad little unit, the base needs some weights.
Chuck