Is there someone here who can do chip level repair on a motherboard?

[Remixt]

Hey guys, I've got an Alienware Aurora R4 motherboard with a bad bios chip. I tried replacing it myself since I did electronics repair in the Air Force, but it turns out big airline circuits are a lot different from motherboards. Anyhow, I'm pretty sure I fucked up the soldering job, and when I turned the computer on, nothing happened. Anyhow, I was hoping I could reach out to the good old LTT forums.

 

I've contacted all the repair companies in my local area and they either can't fix my board or they want to charge me more than it would cost to just buy a new one off amazon. I was hoping that maybe someone here who likes tinkering might want to give it a go. Please note that I'm looking for a volunteer. This isn't something that I want to pay a ton of money for, as I already have a great computer that works just fine. If no one wants to mess around with it for fun then its no big deal. This would be a risk free thing for you. If you can't fix it then its not a big deal, but if you can that would be great!

 

Obviously I'm looking for someone who has done this kind of repair before, preferably more than once  

 

[Windows7ge]

If you soldered on a new BIOS chip with the correct BIOS designed for that board I wonder if you made the simple mistake of soldering it on upside down.  

[Remixt]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

If you soldered on a new BIOS chip with the correct BIOS designed for that board I wonder if you made the simple mistake of soldering it on upside down.  

I think my iron is too big. It looks like I stripped the contact joints by mistake (they are brown instead of silver now) and there might be some solder touching more than one pin on the chip at the same time. If I had the tools needed I think I may have been able to do it myself, but I don't.

[waynedud3]

5 minutes ago, Remixt said:

but it turns out big airline circuits are a lot different from motherboards

No shit, Sherlock.

 

6 minutes ago, Remixt said:

local area

Any other areas?

 

Maybe you could look for a cheap replacement motherboard on Ebay (I'd be happy to find one), because board repair on motherboards/logic boards is only suitable for laptops, most of the time.

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, Remixt said:

I think my iron is too big. It looks like I stripped the contact joints by mistake (they are brown instead of silver now) and there might be some solder touching more than one pin on the chip at the same time. If I had the tools needed I think I may have been able to do it myself, but I don't.

If the pad is brown and solder doesn't stick then you ripped the pad off the board. You'll have to strip the trace where the pad leads, expose the copper and run a wire to the pin.

[Remixt]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

If the pad is brown and solder doesn't stick then you ripped the pad off the board. You'll have to strip the trace where the pad leads, expose the copper and run a wire to the pin.

Figured as much. That sounds like loads of fun.

[Windows7ge]

Just now, Remixt said:

Figured as much. That sounds like loads of fun.

What is the pin density? Do you have a part number so I can see the chip?

[Remixt]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

What is the pin density? Do you have a part number so I can see the chip?

phew. No idea about the density. I'll get you a part number if I can. one second.

[Remixt]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

What is the pin density? Do you have a part number so I can see the chip?

7JNH0

[Windows7ge]

 

1 minute ago, Remixt said:

7JNH0

Desktop motherboard, isn't the BIOS chip an 8 pin package and socketed? Why are you soldering on a nother one? No soldering should be required unless the harness was ripped off the board.

[Remixt]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

 

Desktop motherboard, isn't the BIOS chip an 8 pin package and socketed? Why are you soldering on a nother one? No soldering should be required unless the harness was ripped off the board.

No the old chip was soldered on. I had to use solder remover to get it off. Dell is a shitty company and didn't use a pin socket system.

[Windows7ge]

3 minutes ago, Remixt said:

No the old chip was soldered on. I had to use solder remover to get it off. Dell is a shitty company and didn't use a pin socket system.

I see, proprietary basically. Just yesterday I was working on a Dell PowerEdge 1900. The first version. Opening that thing up EVERYTHING screamed proprietary. They didn't want you going third party for anything except HDD/CPU/RAM replacement.

[Remixt]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

I see, proprietary basically. Just yesterday I was working on a Dell PowerEdge 1900. The first version. Opening that thing up EVERYTHING screamed proprietary. They didn't want you going third party for anything except HDD/CPU/RAM replacement.

Yeah, this all started with my bios getting locked during a flash. I contacted dell support and they had the audacity to tell me that I needed to pay $700 for them to "repair" the issue. I tried to find a way to flash a new bios on there and it turns out that Dell deliberately made that impossible to do without a special instruction set that they keep private. (as told to me by one of the support team). So my only option was to get a new chip that had a good bios on it. 

[Windows7ge]

Just now, Remixt said:

Yeah, this all started with my bios getting locked during a flash. I contacted dell support and they had the audacity to tell me that I needed to pay $700 for them to "repair" the issue. I tried to find a way to flash a new bios on there and it turns out that Dell deliberately made that impossible to do without a special instruction set that they keep private. (as told to me by one of the support team). So my only option was to get a new chip that had a good bios on it. 

In order for me to flash the BIOS on the Dell PowerEdge 1900 I had to boot into a DOS prompt and execute a BIOS update .exe file because the server board had no "Update BIOS" option in the BIOS (Dell sure knows how to make it hard). I wonder if that would have made any difference in your situation. For the BIOS to lock up durring an update sounds like a faulty BIOS or a hardware failure. How long have you had this machine?

[Remixt]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

In order for me to flash the BIOS on the Dell PowerEdge 1900 I had to boot into a DOS prompt and execute a BIOS update .exe file because the server board had no "Update BIOS" option in the BIOS (Dell sure knows how to make it hard). I wonder if that would have made any difference in your situation. For the BIOS to lock up durring an update sounds like a faulty BIOS or a hardware failure. How long have you had this machine?

almost 4 years. The update failed because my power went out though, the machine was fine I was just trying to update the bios.

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, Remixt said:

almost 4 years. The update failed because my power went out though, the machine was fine I was just trying to update the bios.

4 years isn't bad, and ooohh, ok that makes sense. The good news is if you want to save some money you can just pick up a new motherboard (unless the chassis uses a proprietary back plane that the motherboard sits on, then you'll have to find your exact motherboard).

[Remixt]

Just now, Windows7ge said:

4 years isn't bad, and ooohh, ok that makes sense. The good news is if you want to save some money you can just pick up a new motherboard (unless the chassis uses a proprietary back plane that the motherboard sits on, then you'll have to find your exact motherboard).

Yeah I thought about that. Most people say that the lighting system doesn't work if you use a different motherboard, but I guess thats not that important.

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, Remixt said:

Yeah I thought about that. Most people say that the lighting system doesn't work if you use a different motherboard, but I guess thats not that important.

Knowing Dell it's probably true. The board must have a dedicated header for any kind of RGB lights. The motherboard uses a standard standoff layout for Micro-ATX motherboards. So keeping in mind the specifications anything Micro-ATX or smaller should fit & keep in mind your other hardware to make sure they'll fit around the board.

[TDP_Equinox]

6 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

except HDD/CPU/RAM replacement.

Some times they don't even allow different CPUs. They worked with intel to make their own custom Core 2 series chips, and some i3 chips. 
Regular ones wont work, and theirs wont work on regular motherboards. 

[Windows7ge]

18 hours ago, TDP_Equinox said:

Some times they don't even allow different CPUs. They worked with intel to make their own custom Core 2 series chips, and some i3 chips. 
Regular ones wont work, and theirs wont work on regular motherboards. 

I hope that's not the case for me. The motherboard is currently rocking a Xeon 5110. 2 cores, no hyper-threading 1.6GHz. I want to replace it and its empty socket next to it with Xeon 5355's 4 cores, 8 threads 2.66GHz. Not that bad even by today's standards. This is to be a SFTP/SSH server for my cousins new business.

[TDP_Equinox]

11 hours ago, Windows7ge said:

I hope that's not the case for me. The motherboard is currently rocking a Xeon 5110. 2 cores, no hyper-threading 1.6GHz. I want to replace it and its empty socket next to it with Xeon 5355's 4 cores, 8 threads 2.66GHz. Not that bad even by today's standards. This is to be a SFTP/SSH server for my cousins new business.

hopefully they never did it with the Xeons; I've never seen any that did.