Alternate Soldering Points, Matrix Infinity, V9

[skub]

How do you take the wires off safely, the controller/mem card ports for example?

[spedmetal]

Originally Posted by skub

How do you take the wires off safely, the controller/mem card ports for example?

Some of the ribbon cables just pull right out. On others there is a little hinged part on the front of the connecter on top that you click up with a small flat head screw driver, make sure you dont pull these ones out as damage to them could result.

The heat shield will just pull off once you have just the mobo and shield in hand.

[puppeteer666]

the last v9 i did the shield would'nt just come off had to warm the heatsinks a little first to losen it off the EEchip.

[spedmetal]

Originally Posted by puppeteer666

the last v9 i did the shield would'nt just come off had to warm the heatsinks a little first to losen it off the EEchip.

Not a bad method, but I have done many many many installs and never once had to heat the shield to remove it. Just a little tug on the heat sink and "POP" there goes the weasel.

[skub]

I got it off, I'm just now having trouble getting soldier to stick on the board. I am going to get a smaller soldering tip tommarow. I scraped away at the leads a bit, that made the copper show much brighter, I also cleaned the surface with a soft solvent and the solder I'm using has flux in it, so I don't know why it's not sticking, time to do more research.

[spedmetal]

Get some solder paste. My solder has flux in it too...so why you ask am I using additional flux? Well the reason is that with the tiny amount of solder we are using on the install the little bit of flux that is in the solder isn’t doing much good, thus the need to physically apply some flux paste to the joint your trying to solder.

[ottoman]

Yeah, they're a pain. Soldering to the alternative points is soldering to the cluster of vias. I tried lots of liquid flux to remove but sometimes a bit stubborn. I wouldn't recommend this but i use a scalpel and very gently scrape away the coating over the vias until they are bare copper then tin them using lots of liquid flux.

As i say i know a couple of people who have damaged their mobos doing this method but works for me.

Regards