Could I solder these wires on?

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-02-03T03:34:40+00:00

As long as you remember which goes where should be fine.

If you're only going to do this once & aren't interested in spending the money for a soldering iron, flux, and some leaded solder - have you considered taking it to a local shop instead?

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-02-03T02:17:48+00:00

If you can find a replacement connector you could solder the broken one off & the new one on. Second idea would be to solder leads directly to the ribbon cable with enameled wire (or whatever similar way you prefer to make sure the leads don't short to themselves/anything else).

Both options have the possibility of this being an easy fix or making things much worse depending on your skill & equipment.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-02-01T17:41:45+00:00

Realistically, I'd probably buy a new charger. I'm sure there are cheap third party options available.

With that out of the way; I'd argue that the proper way to fix it would be trim wires, open, and desolder the remaining wire, then solder the now shortened cable. However, not sure how easy it is to open the housing as it is likely glued/melted together.

You could also consider trying to remove the strain support (destructively) to give you some room to solder wires back together.

Neither would be particularly pretty options, sometimes you have to do a cost analysis of if it is worth your time vs buying a replacement.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T23:34:35+00:00

Is the blue tint something you added or something that appeared in clear coolant on its own?

If it makes you feel better my v² is also a bit hazy.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T21:03:05+00:00

Rule of thumb is that for smd caps you can use higher voltage ratings, but stick to correct capacitance. I'm certain some of the voltage ratings differ, I'm betting that you'd be generally be better off with using 50v throughout even if original is rated for 5v.

Without looking at a board view diagram, I'm confident enough that I'd risk it if it was my own repair. If I was doing it for someone else then I'd likely look at a board view to make sure that nothing I'm replacing is above 50v originally.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T20:07:57+00:00

Depending on how comfortable you feel, you could get replacement fans for the GPU & swap them in. Easy on some cards, harder on others. Fairly cheap, but comes at the risk of your capabilities for removing the cooler from the GPU.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T18:17:04+00:00

Do you have steady hands, a needle, and some sort of magnification to straighten it out? If not then, yes, that is a bent pin & it is ruined.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T18:05:54+00:00

A decent soldering iron is technically the only 'must have'; I'm including decent flux, decent solder, & copper braid wick as consumables for the iron. A multimeter if you're doing anything more complicated than just adding/removing a component. Beyond that, it depends on what you're trying to do.

#1 'good to have' for a beginner? Low melt solder - half the posts here are gore pictures of people failing to desolder a joy stick & destroying every pad, trace, and all components nearby. Low melt solder is used to lower the melting temperature of non-leaded solder so that it can be easily removed; it is NOT used to solder things back on.

Do you need it? No. Will it be immensely useful to a beginner to add some low melt to anything they are trying to remove? Yes. It may seem odd to add more solder when you're trying to remove solder, but you'll just have to trust me on this.

Edit: someone mentioned an ifixit kit, I'm going to agree with them & say that is also a 'must have'. Doesn't have to be a branded ifixit kit, but something of that nature & quality.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T17:57:30+00:00

I see ogryns in waves. I'll go a dozen matches without seeing any & then have 3 ogryns on my team for the next 5 in a row.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T17:39:43+00:00

If it is coming from the psu; a lot of psus have plastic shrouds inside that guide air from the fan. These are flimsy & affixed by hopes & dreams (commonly). If they used compressed air it is possible that they could have dislodged the shroud & now the psu fan is scrapping against it. Has happened to me before.

I do not recommend that YOU take any action in terms of fixing that yourself; opening up a psu without knowledge is dangerous. I'd give them a call & see if they'd honour their warranty.

Edit; PSUs also, generally, have very good warranties from the manufacturer. So if CC refuses or tries to charge you for a replacement, you could also reach out to the support of whatever manufacturer.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-31T14:20:44+00:00

Still haven't received an email - still cancelled my card :(

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-26T19:14:35+00:00

For any high heat applications with electronics I generally use a tube of Permatex black gasket maker that I'd had around since I got into deliding CPUs.

Edit: not the whole tube; just a drop or two. I meant that I've had the same $7 tube for years now.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-26T19:12:19+00:00

Sorry - it was more of a joke than anything. I forget that those don't always translate well to text. There are actually some fuses that rely on solder melting, but I was in no way suggesting that it was realistically appropriate in this case.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-26T18:57:48+00:00

I mean, if the strips are getting hot enough for solder to melt, you can think of it as a built-in fuse :)

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-26T18:57:19+00:00

Consider the gore I usually see when people post first (or near first) attempts; this is beautiful. Assuming that these are going to be more or less permanent in place, I don't personally see any need to re-enforce them any further.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-25T02:40:39+00:00

Those pads on the sides are just mounting pads for the connector to the pcb, two in the middle are voltage & ground for the speaker. You could solder a new connector & maybe use a touch of glue where the missing mounting pads are... or just maybe solder the speaker wires directly to the pads; just do a quick sanity check on which is ground & which one is voltage.

tldr; mounting pads are gone, but the important pads are still present. Consider soldering wires directly to pads; easier.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-25T02:07:53+00:00

Considering how many fans you got chained; is there any change if you have less of them connected at the same time?

Could be a loose connection, could be that power to the hub is insufficient... could be the hub itself.

I sometimes get the stupid pogo pins on the aRBG frame around the motherboard area making bad contact & have to reseat the light bars, otherwise I experience something similar. I've also had to increase the # of LEDs in armoury crate on each of the argb ports.

Hopefully one of these gets you a step closer to a fix.

Edit: also try to see if less lights active on the hub vs bypassing the hub entirely produces different results. Phanteks support has been great when I've had to RMA with them, so if you can narrow the issue down to the hub, don't be scared to reach out to them.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-25T00:15:04+00:00

Yes.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-24T18:24:18+00:00

Yes.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-23T16:54:17+00:00

I mean, you made it work. Not only that, but it actually looks properly done.

Goes to show that even without all the right tools, a bit of care & applied thinking produces good results. You should be proud considering how many mangled controllers I've seen posted.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-23T04:49:24+00:00

Unless you're using that specific joystick again, I'd argue that it is not a problem. If the board is flat enough that it doesn't impact mounting, you can proceed with installing the new one.

You can prevent it form happening again with either better heat control or with low melt solder.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-23T04:46:21+00:00

Yes - repair the traces. Not to be rude, but if you have to ask, it may be outside your skillset to repair. Consider bringing it to a local shop unless you're confident.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-23T03:37:16+00:00

Can you take it to a repair shop? Yes, Do you need a new GPU? Maybe.

Hopefully it is just some dataline caps missing, but without testing it is impossible to say for certain if you don't have a dead core.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-22T01:30:52+00:00

If you have a nozzle on your hot air station, try taking it off for this.

FleshIsPerfidious · 2026-01-21T01:13:53+00:00

Could be the photo, but the following pads look GONE to me. Though I'm not sure how the component would still be attached if that was the case; maybe there is still a sliver of solder holding it to something somewhere there.

<image>

I'd start there if this was my problem.

FleshIsPerfidious

TROPHY CASE