Fixed a 10 year old Dell with a heat gun and a prayer

Found a corroded trace on the motherboard near the DC jack, hit it with flux and 700 degrees for 10 seconds, and the thing booted right up. Has anyone else had luck reviving ancient hardware with nothing but solder paste and desperation?

2 comments

2 Comments

ward.jamie1mo ago

Kinda wild how we're all out here fixing decade old computers like it's nothing, but nobody talks about what happens when that fix eventually fails. In my experience those corroded traces are a symptom, not the root cause. There's probably more damage hiding under the board or inside the layers that a heat gun just masks. Your mileage may vary, but I've had boards die weeks later because the corrosion was deeper than what I could see. Worth checking the caps next to the DC jack too, they take a beating over time.

the_mary1mo ago

Gotta push back a bit @ward.jamie, because corroded traces are actually the root cause in a lot of these cases. The issue is that you can't always see the full extent of it, especially when it's spread under a chip or inside a via. Heat guns can definitely mask problems if you're just blasting components, but when you scrape away the corrosion and hit clean copper, you've usually solved the real issue. Just make sure to clean the area with isopropyl alcohol and seal it with some nail polish or solder mask after the repair.