t42 ATI cold solder problems - 14'' only or 15,1'' too

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ziemeck · #1 Post by **ziemeck** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 4:36 pm

Was t42 15,1'' with ATI 7500 affected by the problem with GPU solders? Is my t42, after 5 years of not causing any problem likely to fall prey of 'cold solder disease'? I have 'short' version of heatsink, not reaching over GPU (I was quite surprised that there's neither heatsink conection nor even a separate fan-less radiotor on that gpu).
I have always considered my old t42 as top-reliability ever seen (t60 gave me 'less stable' experience, but my old Dell C810 far beyond that).

#2 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 6:10 pm

ANY T40/T41/T42 motherboard with ATI GPU can get the problem.
T43 sometimes get a Southbridge problem, rather than a GPU problem.
Boards in 14" and 15" are identical, they just have an extra (removable) interposer card between mobo and CD cage.

kaede · #3 Post by **kaede** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 7:41 pm

any idea how to fix this southbridge problem? i think my t43 having this issue. very hot under the touchpad area.

#4 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Thu Mar 17, 2011 9:27 pm

You need to find someone who can reball the Southbridge chip, or get another mobo.
Contact Nick Paton at ReflowRepairs.co.uk (in my signature) who can do reballing.

poshgeordie · #5 Post by **poshgeordie** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 3:45 am

kaede wrote:any idea how to fix this southbridge problem? i think my t43 having this issue. very hot under the touchpad area.

If your T43 is still working OK then you don't have any problems. In general if it's still working don't touch it!

Yes it does get warm under the SB but there's nothing that can be done about that even after it's been reballed.
If the SB chip has failed, reballing will repair it and since we use very high quality solder balls it won't fail even if it's running quite hot.

Regarding sending the board to us in the UK to repair it, please bear in mind that the return carriage costs are £28 (pounds sterling) on top of the published prices- there's nothing we can do about those!
Also I don't know of any reflowing companies in Singapore / Malaysia either.

kaede · #6 Post by **kaede** » Fri Mar 18, 2011 2:23 pm

poshgeordie wrote:
If your T43 is still working OK then you don't have any problems. In general if it's still working don't touch it!

Yes it does get warm under the SB but there's nothing that can be done about that even after it's been reballed.
If the SB chip has failed, reballing will repair it and since we use very high quality solder balls it won't fail even if it's running quite hot.

Regarding sending the board to us in the UK to repair it, please bear in mind that the return carriage costs are £28 (pounds sterling) on top of the published prices- there's nothing we can do about those!
Also I don't know of any reflowing companies in Singapore / Malaysia either.

Hi Nick,

Yes it works fine at the moment

. what i get just occasionally disconnection on the wireless. it will still show as connected. but doesn't seem going anywhere. and it will resolved by itself. Dont' know if this caused by the SB. Anyway its not that frequent. still can live with it. planning to do some mod to cool down SB. Thanks for the information Nick. Yeah it's a bit hard to find companies that do reflow/reball motherboard here.

thx

sktn77a · #7 Post by **sktn77a** » Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:25 pm

kaede wrote: what i get just occasionally disconnection on the wireless.

If you haven't uninstalled Access Connections, try that. I have 1 computer that has similar problems which disappear after uninstalling AC. I have other computers before and after that it works just fine on, but not this one (T42, see sig).

kaede · #8 Post by **kaede** » Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:49 pm

sktn77a wrote: If you haven't uninstalled Access Connections, try that. I have 1 computer that has similar problems which disappear after uninstalling AC. I have other computers before and after that it works just fine on, but not this one (T42, see sig).

i actually not running access connections at the moment. anyway so far i underclock my cpu. seems like SB running much cooler. wireless more stable.