Main board? More like mangled board

"cbell04" (cbell04)
04/07/2018 at 23:49 • Filed to: None

Coworkers sad attempt of a main board swap. “It won’t boot at all now that I sawpped the board” I’m counting 6 maybe 7 bent pins on the cpu socket. Smooth move exlax. Ah well stuff happens.

DISCUSSION (14)

Nibbles > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 00:32

To think, I used to have to repair those pins

facw > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 01:00

Ouch, how does that even happen? You just drop the CPU in and close the retainer, there’s never any force applied.

Hopefully they didn’t destroy their CPU by shorting something. Seems like it would be tough to get the pins bent back, in the past it was so much easier with various PGA processors, you could just gently slide a credit card between the pin rows to straighten things out.

cbell04 > facw
04/08/2018 at 01:25

I have bent these pins back successfully but only when they have been mildly tweaked. This one was shot. Had to pop a whole new board on for the customer. Back in the day we would have better luck repairing but the pins these days are so tiny and weak. Also as to how this happened. Total bull in china shop style. This person is known for leaving behind a trail of tears.

cbell04 > Nibbles
04/08/2018 at 01:27

The only time they are ever bent/broken is when you following a screw up tech or logistics beats up your part while delivering it. Can’t say I never bent some up but the person I followed makes a career out of making small problems into big problems and then running away..

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 06:46

If you’re very careful with a small precision screwdriver, you can bend them back - it’s not easy, but I’ve done it before to a moron co-worker’s system after they tried to swap their heatsink and took out the CPU for some reason...

cbell04 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/08/2018 at 07:49

Absolutely agree but this is in a customers paid for this service type environment. I have done it but if I have the part not worth the risk I just put the board on and do it correctly. I diagnose and change parts all day for a living so sometimes you have to know when to repair and when to replace. If it were my screw up and I had no other part you better believe i would have been in there trying to cover my rear:)

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 07:57

I am a teacher by trade, but I do repairs and computer tutoring on the side, so I know what you mean....doing it on the side though means the people I am working for don’t always have the funds to get new parts. I’ll usually tell them if something like this is borked and tell them I will TRY and fix it, but warn them of the cost before I do so.

I also just hate seeing potentially usable parts go to scrap, especially if it’s ‘easy’ enough to repair by bending a few pins back, haha!

My personal Win10 desktop is bought parts that I assembled myself, but my laptop, mom’s laptop, and bro’s laptop (bro has a custom built Win10 desktop as well!) are all laptops I was given for free not working and repaired for very minimal costs - running Linux Mint as well to save a few more bucks as none of the three had Windows keys on them anymore - they’re all still working fine so far! :)

cbell04 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/08/2018 at 08:19

Sounds very familiar. My life is full of Frankenstein pc’s, laptops, security equipment, some drone stuff... and the list goes on. If it can be repaired i will. But at work I have the backing of a major corp and a Ram Promaster full of all the right parts. Good news is it won’t be scrapped we will repair it and test it in a facility rather than using the customer as the guinea pig. Our business is measured in up time so every minute a machine is down can cost us far more than the cost of parts so that kinda limits your freedom as well.

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 08:29

Yeah. Glad it will at least be repaired then. Keep up the good work! :P

cbell04 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/08/2018 at 08:36

The Computer Tutor would be a simple but cool business name. I might add that to my random repair guy craigslist ad I run to fix pc’s and drones on the side (haven’t been posting now that they charge $5 to do so). Offer to assist in teaching the cust to repair rather than taking it and doing it myself. Give a man a fish he eats for a day teach a man to fish something something something.

cbell04 > RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars
04/08/2018 at 08:36

RallyDarkstrike - Fan of 2-cyl FIATs, Eastern Bloc & Kei cars > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 09:11

Go for it! I don’t usually teach how to do repairs (a lot of my customers are the technologically clueless or elderly type, so it would be over their heads), but I do hardware repairs and software troubleshooting for them...transfer data to new machines, tutor them on how to use certain programs or their computer in general....answer literally any questions they have, that sort of thing. :)

Would love to get a drone of my own sometime...something with a remote camera to watch and control from a tablet or phone or RC controller or the like. Would be a fun toy! No funding for sort of thing at the moment though...still living at home (at 31...) trying to find a full-time, permanent job teaching or in another education field and put all the money I earn towards saving for a house so I won’t have to blow it all on a mortgage over the years or on expensive rental costs. And saving a bit on the side to import a FIAT 126p from Poland when the time comes....priorities! :P

Nibbles > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 09:35

In my previous line of work they were bent a lot more often. Firmware writers would decide they need to test on a different set of cores and, instead of asking me, would ‘swap procs’ and then ask me why it doesn’t work. I’d then put the boards under the microscope and bend every pin back in place

Fun fact: there is a design flaw in the ProLiant DL780 G7 regarding connector pins. I found the flaw and suggested a rework (even built a PoC), but it was deemed an acceptable fault. That acceptable fault led to SO MANY field replacements

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > cbell04
04/08/2018 at 11:12

I’ve had that happen to me on a couple occasions. I always bent them back with a ruler or screwdriver. Thankfully the pins didn’t break