February 15, 2008

How to break an iBook


Well I am usually pretty good about not breaking things worse when I am trying to fix them, but today was not my day...

I had got an iBook off of surplus for a buck, however it did not have any video, after taking it apart and pressing on the graphics chip on the board I could tell its connections had come loose. Similar to the story here. So I set off on an adventure to try to fix it. After making a cup out of aluminum, I got a propane torch and started heating it. It worked well enough and came very close to working, but shifting the board still caused video problems, so I had the bright idea to put some pressure on it while heating.... BAD IDEA! The solder balls underneath got squished and fused together, rendering the logic board useless.... Sigh. There are times when you wish life had an undo, this was one of the times I wanted to use it. Well I will remove the solder and chip from the board and see if it at least starts, right now it turns on shorts and shuts off. However it would take inhuman skill to solder it back on correctly. Ah such a waste, well maybe I can sell the working parts online.

Note: The clamp was not tightened any further then to simply hold the cup and a small metal piece on the bottom together, plus give me a grip to hold on to, but that was still to much pressure.

Luckily there are more iBooks on surplus with the same problem, and because I am probably the only one crazy/stupid enough to attempt this again to try to fix them, I at least have a couple more tries at making a digital picture frame. Yes that was the original goal.

Oh well, now excuse me while I go beat my head against a wall.

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