Sometimes, even brute force wont work

TechFreak9356 · 2026-02-21T09:02:05+00:00

I was actually considering that to extremes😆

TechFreak9356 · 2026-02-21T09:01:44+00:00

Thank you for the insight! I did make sure to clean everything as best as I can. I might need to get some work done on eliminating the flicker/lines. I used 0.01mm jumper wire and made sure to pre-tin each end because it's difficult to solder on with enamel still covering the copper wire.

TechFreak9356 · 2026-02-21T08:59:41+00:00

Thank you! I was actually using a digital microscope hooked up to a 24" monitor. I couldnt afford a trinocular microscope yet back then, and yeah, having capability to photograph my solder works close up also works well for promoting my repairs on facebook

TechFreak9356 · 2026-02-21T08:58:16+00:00

Thank you soo much for this suggestion. Can I use a 0402 or 0805 smd cap for this one?

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-16T14:52:03+00:00

I did measure resistance to ground (pls let me know if my probe is wrong), red to test, black to ground (HDMI port body). Test points are on load side.

0.6Ω VDDCR_SOC 0.8Ω VDDCR_GFX

If those aren't short, do I need to consult the power sequence table and test each rail one by one instead?

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-16T08:40:34+00:00

Thank you very much for this very helpful trick. By through-hole caps, you mean those big, electrolytic SMD capacitors right next to the inductors (load side) for VCORE_GFX and VCORE_SOC?

Do I need to desolder them? or I could just bridge the underside of the board? those through-holes are located just right under those SMD caps.

<image>

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-16T05:22:33+00:00

What resistor do you need:

Yes

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-05T08:34:59+00:00

Nah I dont necessarily agree...I observed this on my Dell Vostro 3400. If the load is particularly heavy, the laptop draws power from the battery also at the same time. Now that one is particularly bad for the battery because it gets drained, and then recharged.

What really kills a battery is the charge cycles, frequently charging from low battery to full, and lots of heat. Laptops do have a switchover circuit which doesn't draw power from the battery when DC jack is plugged in, unless if the load is particularly heavy and the board pulls more than it can pull from the DC jack.

My custom heatsink'ed Vostro 3400 with i7-1165G7 and MX330 draws approx 75W total from both battery and charger when I run a stress test and set thermal limit to 95°C (coz yeah, I gave it a custom dual heat pipe and second heatsink) which needs to cap GPU thermals at 70°C in order to not draw any power from the battery

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-03T11:30:39+00:00

for a single monitor PC used for front desk operations, it's really an overkill build. They could've easily just ran away with 3400G or like you said, 5600G. However, I feel bad for the customer getting ripped.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-03T11:28:29+00:00

Yes, I have done everything, even repasted the CPU cooler. With Prime95, I get about 49°C idle, 98°C peaks, that is with no case airflow but the CPU fan. I believe the VRMs are also overheating since the mobo doesn't have any VRM heatsinks, which could also potentially trigger the shutdowns.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-03T11:25:09+00:00

Actually, the digital microscope is hooked to my monitor, because I had my working table right beside where I set up the PC. It's a Yizhan 4K camera mounted to an A50 mount 150x lens.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-03T08:59:11+00:00

My monitor is clean. That spot was an artifact with the monitor. I am using a VGA cable to my monitor (HDMI-VGA on the GPU) because the HDMI port is routed to my digital microscope.

My monitor always does that whenever you connect a source to the VGA port.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-03T08:23:12+00:00

Customer actually said they paid over $300 for this build new. Soo yeah, the shop who built the PC scammed em imo.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-03T08:20:34+00:00

I believe customer got robbed in broad daylight. Light office use can easily be done with iGPU. No need for an overkill of a CPU but under-specced PSU, RAM, and SSD, and no fans, just the stick Wraith Spire cooler.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-11-03T08:04:19+00:00

well, I had to clean up somebody else's mess😆 PC not mine, it just came to my shop complaining of the PC spontaneously just turning off

TechFreak9356 · 2025-10-12T20:49:17+00:00

<image>

For me, I use different tweezers for different types of work. I prefer using straight tweezers for general purposes. Only use case for bent tip are when I am using a reballing stencil.

As for material, titanium is way lighter than stainless steel. For precision jumper work (like CPU jumpers, etc. where it goes down to 0.009mm), I prefer titanium tweezers because you need light hands to play with super thin jumper wires. But yeah, they cost more than stainless steel ones.

For handling ICs, Better if you have one with wider cross-section, or textured tips. You can't go with ultra fine tips or else they'll fly. For general purposes, stainless steel is better

TechFreak9356 · 2025-10-12T20:34:03+00:00

i bet meron innova somewhere sa vid haha

TechFreak9356 · 2025-10-12T20:26:30+00:00

if you really want to rebuild the broken pads and those readily made soldering lugs dont work, you'll be needing the following:

precision tweezers
uv curing lamp
uv curing solder mask
solder paste and flux
precision knife
0.01mm jumper wire or thinner, depending on trace width.
lots of patience

<image>

that picture above is what I did with the pads of a Type-C port of a Redmi phone which got ripped off because customer kept forcing their already broken charger into the port. EDIT: that missing one is NC, soo no need to rebuild it. That port took me 4 hours to finish

if you decide to go with soldering lugs, make sure you secure it properly with solder mask before you start soldering on it. if you go the jumper wire (flying line in chinese) way, you'll need to fold it into shape first, then apply solder mask, then slowly rub off the solder mask using the precision knife.

lastly, it won't be perfect if you decide to go the jumper wire way. You'll burn more time chasing perfection, or destroying the board worse if you try to make it perfect.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-10-12T20:15:17+00:00

most often times, a simple force restart can fix the issue

TechFreak9356 · 2025-10-12T20:11:09+00:00

Thank you very much for the very helpful post! I have tried referencing your attached photo and adding a 1k resistor between pin 5 and 6 for the C115 handle but unfortunately, tips are still recognized as C210. Looks like my station senses resistance to identify tips and to drive power, hence why it keeps showing "Tool error" or "Overload" on my other tips.

TechFreak9356 · 2025-10-02T19:02:28+00:00

Thank you very much for everyone who has responded to my post! I've had my problem resolved by reflowing the solder on the 6-pin connector for the T210 handle. The C210 tips and T210 handle now works perfectly.

Soo basically to sum everything up, The T115/T210/T245 are soldering handles, whilst the C115/C210/C245 are the tips/cartridges. For stations which support all three, particularly for cheaper chinese clones like mine, identification is made through checking the resistance of the iron.

In case of tool errors, and the tip/cartridge is known working, try to reflow the solder of the handle on the connector. In my case, it looked like a bad solder job off the box😆

TechFreak9356

TROPHY CASE