Socal Soldering

[Circaflex]

Attempting to install my waterblock on my dual pcb gtx295. DUring fan removal not too sure what happened but right near the memory chip there is a black square that says R10 on it. Some how 1/3 of that cracked off, im thinking when i was prying the fan solution off the stress caused it to "snap" and chip off. Im not too sure what they are called but it says R10. Is this fixable? And if so are there any expert solders in Socal or anywhere in california? What sucks is i just bought the block for the card, and its somewhat hard to find dual pcb gtx295's for cheap. I am at work now so i cannot snap a picture but maybe what i described is enough info.

[570091D]

that would be one of your ferrite chokes... best of luck.

i think this (http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts/1596548-induct-lo-profile-100nh-45a-smd-fp1006r2-r10-r.html) is the right one, only $1.74!

[vinister]

very easy if you have the right tools. nearly impossible if you don't.

You need a clean, well maintained, temperature controlled soldering iron, with a very small tip on it. A small suction-cup tool will be helpful to apply upward force on the component when the solder is flowed. A solder sucker, some solder wick, some alcohol, some flux, etc.

I find with these machine-assembled components it helps alot to add fresh solder to the joint. Otherwise it is very difficult to flow the existing solder. It would be very helpful to have a properly sized soldering tip pace that looks like a set of wide tweezers, and will melt all the joints at once (there should be 3 on that component I think). If you cannot melt all 3, then I would start with the side that has one. melt it, then try to push a small toothpick under it to pry that side up just a bit so that it doesn't re-solder. Suck up all the solder you can while its wet. Then go to the other side, and melt another one, and pry it up some more. Eventually it should pop off of there. Clean off all the remaining solder with some wick, clean with alcohol, and you should have 3 nice clean pads to install the new component.

You may have ruined the choke, so you will not be able to read its value anymore. If you can get a part number you may be able to match it with a replacement. Good luck.

Be very careful not to apply force until the pads are totally wet. If you do not heed this warning you will lift a pad off the board, and then you will be completely F'd.

[Circaflex]

finally got my pc back and running, i will snap a picture to see what you guys think.

[overclocking101]

do it i wanna see how you did it

[Circaflex]

well by up and running i mean a 5870 LOL, gtx is just sittin here

[Circaflex]

here are two crappy pictures taken with my palm pre, digital cammy seems to have walked away.

http://img713.imageshack.us/i/cimg0021gf.jpg/
http://img7.imageshack.us/i/cimg0022f.jpg/

[Circaflex]

bump anyone^^ does it look fixable? i know the images are crummy but hopefully good enough to see

[Planet]

The biggest issue would be getting the component. Soldering it isnt hard at all and should only take a few seconds.

[Circaflex]

ic, well i think later this week i will put it back together on AIR and see if it even boots up or works at all. TO this day im still smacking myself for such a n00b mistake, trying to rip apart a card before going to work and not properly doing the work!!!!! what an expensive learning lesson.

[[XC] gomeler]

Very hard to make out in your photo but it looks like you knocked off part of the ceramic choke? I had the same thing happen when I was mounting a LN2 pot. No joke, I superglued that thing back together and the card checked out on LN2 and on air just like it had before. So long as the electrical connection isn't snapped and you glue the missing chunk of ferrite back together you might be able to do the same thing.

[Circaflex]

i will give that a try and see what it does, ive been putting this off as time is super limited right now :(

[vinister]

totally if its just the ferrite part of a choke, just glue it back on and it will be just fine. Those components have a tolerance of 5-10% anyways, so as long as you haven't shorted or opened the conductor inside, it will very likely work just fine.