x31 drive needs reseating again

[seaweedsl]

This X31 of my mom's fails to boot and reseating the hard drive fixes it, then fails again a few times later. Reseating drive fixes it.

- bad drive

- poor contacts on drive pins or jack

- ide controller/mb

Thoughts anybody?

[ganon11000]

Connectors, probably a pin / socket is bad, try another HDD and see if it goes away, if it doesn't then the side socket is damaged and needs replacing.

[seaweedsl]

Thanks. I guess I knew the process, just fishing for one of those "oh, the x31 always has this problem, it's..." I'm cloning the drive first to swap it out. Weird how it works for a few cycles then goes out again.

Thinking about it, maybe it's the socket to MB connection that's marginal. Heat cycles/flex could then explain it. Hmm....where's my hot air gun?

[ganon11000]

What air gun do you use as I'm thinking of buying one but cand decide on temperature etc..

[seaweedsl]

Oh, I bought the Wagner some years back hoping it would work for reflowing GPUs on T4x but it/the process didn't work the one time I tried. Still, I might try again on this if it's the issue.

[ganon11000]

Ok, did you do the blob of solder trick? (put a blob of solder on the GPU and when that melts you know the BGA is fixing itself!) I think you need 120-160oC to melt the solder??