PCB Repair Advice

Hi

I shall be in a position to purchase all the required items in order to carry out motherboard repairs very shortly. The problem is that I don't know where to start! I'm guessing the best place would be to get training, but I've searched the UK web and can't seem to get much information on this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance.

Motherboards are not normally repaired. It can be done but working with surface mounted devices can be very hard.

Google

The above google link will help with the soldering. I do know a little on electronics but am not in a professional position to give you much advice.

Look for courses in microelectronics and also basic electronics. Learn how to use a multimeter. Learn how to use the test points on a PCB.

These are just a few ideas, look on websites that specialise in these kinds of things.

Many thanks for your response! I shall look into your link and come back to you if I have any further questions.

Most motherboards are multilayered PCB which make repairs pretty much impossible, besides that it's very rare that you would be able to diagnose a fault down to component level on the mobo.

In addition to that, most motherboards are of a multi-level design, meaning that there are several layers of track patterns. Each component is connected to one or more of these tracks. In some cases, the track(s) to which it is connected is/are inside the motherboard 'sandwich'. Expensive specialist equipment and soldering techniques are required for this, and indeed for the board as a whole, given the potential track density and the number of connections on the individual components. This is especially true with the ICs (and sockets, if used), as they can have a great many connections in a confined space (some can be less than 1mm apart).

Ok, I can see where this is going gents! Avoid like the plague!!!

It's just that I get a little frustrated. I come across a lot of laptops that have suspected GPU faults and require 'reflowing' etc etc and I would like to know how to repair these kind of common faults myself rather than employ a 3rd party.

I suspect that most of these suspected faults are not the GPU as in all my years and 100's maybe 1000's of laptops that have come across my workbench, I cant remember one with a hardware GPU issue.

All parts these days are built to be replaced and not fixed

It would appear I have a lot to learn!!....:huh:

The most helpfull thing you can learn is understanding crash reports, these will 99% of the time give you the real reason for faults.

There is a lot of info here on how to start - Crash and lockup debug 'How To' - Windows 7 Forums

rikstaparr said:

Ok, I can see where this is going gents! Avoid like the plague!!!

It's just that I get a little frustrated. I come across a lot of laptops that have suspected GPU faults and require 'reflowing' etc etc and I would like to know how to repair these kind of common faults myself rather than employ a 3rd party.

Click to expand...

Hello!

I am pretty poor at hardware, so I hope that I don't make any huge mistakes!

As has already been mentioned, hardware is not really designed to be fixed these days. There are some who have tried it, although I suspect that none of it will ever work perfectly again, for very long, or have a very good success rate (ie completely destroy it in an attempt to fix it)

There are two (motherboard usually) problems which people do try to occasionally fix, but it really isn't worth it or viable.

1: I am not very sure myself about this one. Not inside the GPU itself, but the poor quality solder melts, and the GPU slightly prises off. Some people have brief success with some time in the oven or a hot air gun.

2: Bad caps. Some people desolder broken capacitors, get new ones of the same ratings, and put new ones in.

These really aren't worth trying.

Richard (a massive hardware noob...)

Thanks for all your input.....I shall take a look at crash reporting I think and give PCB repairs a very wide berth!!...again, many thanks to all of you.