Andre

Incidentally I found that older drive PCBs have value for data recovery companies, removing and shredding just the 8 pin flash chip is good enough. These can also be recycled if destruction of the data on them can be assured they were previously wiped. Newer hybrid drives are a problem as data can be stored on the PCB as well though this is normally obvious upon removal.

Take the drives apart save the pcb and magnets optionally the bearings and put platters in an industrial furnace. The memory chips if present can be removed and fragmented. Ideally make visual record of operation showing each drive casing and serial numbers and also store this in a database. Drive casings can be recycled as high grade Al and motors + bearings have valuable copper.

Similar problem here. Phone has the “Snow Crash” but want to see if anything is salvageable. Incidentally some devices especially Moto tablets NEED the SIM card in to complete setup, guess this got missed out of the manual. Worth a try if it seems stuck.

Hi, incidentally the S6 screen is said to be identical to the Note 4 but it has an extra part on the back namely the S Pen. Maybe all those broken Note 4s with fail eMMC can be recycled? Bit of gentle hacking may work here, I separated the S Pen flex from mine without too much hassle. Not sure if anyone else has tried this, the problem is finding a good reliable source of old Note 4 phones. The bare displays are a pain to separate but if you do a lot of them there are safe methods.

Hi I too have this problem. In my case wanted to make a small cluster and shockingly this one is linux capable. Fortunately the original owner broke it just before the new fw came out so may try it with just pcb connected to see what it does.

Same problem here. Maybe worth mentioning but the CMOS battery on these is a small disk with wires attached. I have replaced it (2.6V) but alas no change. It might be worth replacing the 25L16 BIOS IC if all else fails as this has unbricked a few netbooks here. Also check core voltage as if this is too low then it won’t work. Hint: these chips are often used on older netbooks and have a scrapper (Toshiba 630996-001) that has already donated its power switch to the cause. The fiddly part would be flashing this and recommend the chip be wiped twice with zeros to make sure before flashing it with a known good image. You can just buy a chip as well from ze biosman.

Hi, have the same problem (maybe) here. It looks like even using a plastic spudger is enough to do this if you are really unlucky. Incidentally some ideas I had: use “laser soldering” to heat just the prepared solder microcolloid consisting of screened soot/PG dust and solder paste on each end rather than using conventional reflow because this may be far superior. I am looking into writing some papers on this :-) Minimum power may be less than 150mW so a modified BR writer diode could be fine if the board is preheated to 75 Celsius first (still within tolerance) also have some old dead boards with various problems to practise on. Also possible: use IR 250mW diode with coaxial blue beam from weaker laser eg an Osram PL450 as this may be somewhat safer: use indirect viewing via a safe box and other measures to prevent eye exposure to reflected beam(s). Ideally I want to fix the one with long screw damage (found this one in a bin!) Incidentally dried up solder paste is still somewhat useful if chemically...

Can this be why some units don't recover after HDMI *AND* IC replacement? I heard that maybe 40% of chips online are fake, some work in 720p only but most do not even run. Fortunately unless you are a complete klutz or used plumbing solder this is repairable, I personally remove chips with Chipquik and extra Fluxite, though pricey it is very efficient. (if you want to make your own the formula is available though not as good) I did find that weighing fake versus genuine is an effective method for these and fake memory cards, the fake will be substantially lighter on a microscale from Ze Finest Greedbay but the cheap ones can be h@x0r3d with some effort. Repeatable measurements to 0.01g and you can see airflow movements! Will share my modification as soon as its complete, had it all apart again to add temperature feedback. Even broken scales are repairable with the right parts from CPC, Farnell, RS, Micro, etc.

Same issue here. A handy tip though is to use DVM on 10A range and undo negative terminal. Meter goes between spade and now exposed negative screw bushing. Monitor current and if charging starts it should draw around 5.1v 1.6A at start dropping down fairly rapidly as voltage builds. Use at own risk, I found that heatshrink around meter probe helps reduce the chance of a short. Pretty sure in my case adaptor went bad as it won't even run my pi!

Hi, I've just taken apart two different failed LED lamps. The typical failure mode on these as the array is normally a 3*8 or similar array and one or more diodes goes high resistance due to overheating or just plain bad design. The series drive chip detects this and shuts down, however sometimes the capacitor goes bad as well. Depending how vigilant your lamp manufacturer was this should just shut down or blow a fuse, but sometimes the circuit goes into runaway and blows all the diodes. I have also seen a similar failure in LED TVs, if you have a dim third of the picture then this is quite likely. Often changing the bad diode (darker than the rest) then testing will bring it back to life. With S**s**g LED TVs the board housing the bad LED can be replaced individually if you can find a scrap panel with good backlight unit(s). LEDs can vary between 3 and 9V Vf which can be determined by voltage testing with a 9V battery and 330 ohm resistor in series, and a voltmeter across diode under test, also handy for...

Supposedly these can also run DooM but the bigger problem is not supporting larger >4GB flash cards.

Its possible to patch the FW but this breaks other things.

I’ve hacked an 8GB onto mine and it did actually format but only when zerofilled and cloned from a working 4GB card.

Where would I obtain a casing? have an iPod mini MB and connector, as well as numerous CF cards. Supposedly anything up to a 16GB will work, but has to support certain functions. I later found out that some older cards were not in fact “633x” and this was simply marketing. These days the biggest problem is getting batteries for these as they are EOL so unless they are new unused stock will have degraded in storage.

Hi, incidentally think the problem with some YLOD is actually not the same. To check, always try the console without the HDD AND memory reader fitted. This typically forces it into recovery mode and will usually result in some sort of display permitting further diagnostics.

Also useful, I found that many old graphics cards have iron containing pads on the memory chips and to a lesser degree GPU, potentially allowing things like induction reflow. It still needs preheating but has potential as a less invasive repair technique as can be controlled more precisely than the heat gun, and often the pads that are bad can be reflowed with some knowledge of where they are without doing them all.

Might need an induction shunt or special mu metal shield on the inductors or simply use a different frequency than usual.

I “invented” this method as a way to get a DL machine on the cheap by repairing broken 1080 Ti’s but it turned out the faults on these are different and harder to repair.

Same here, incidentally where can I get replacement batteries please? Also have a “Picolo” heli with a bad feedback IC , supposedly this part can also be replaced on some units as its a soldered vertical board on the main.

Hi, incidentally failure to POST can also be caused by the following.

1) conductive debris or bent/shorting pins in the HDMI or USB3 ports, common to many other machines including Acer tablet PCs.

2) sometimes there is a tiny inline filter next to the optical drive. If it falls off the board or otherwise fails the track right next to it can corrode, knocking out the +V supply for the USBs and optical drive. If you take out the optical drive and the machine then boots up fine then this is most likely your problem, seen this twice now. Galvanic corrosion maybe?

3) completely dead or damaged battery caused by bad DC jack. Normally the power light blinks 3 times but not always. Replacing these items normally works.

4) Stuffed BIOS. Rare but it happens, alas Sony didn’t include a CRISIS recovery option. Replacement chip is doable as its an 8 pin WSOP-8 and the Chipquik method works well.

Note: a good test for broken OLED is to shine a UV light at it.

Broken units typically do not fluoresce corectly and show red “patches” where water has got in.

If you compare with a known good unit the difference is very obvious.

Note: if someone has changed the glass and used third party LOCA it will light up blue not white!

If anyone has a fix for the brickbug please let me know. I did get most of the data off just before it carked it but alas

looks like the most recent pictures are toast.

Trying to fix my “brickbug” one now. Yes the screen is a complete PITA.

Maybe a hint though, pushing on the battery compartment can break the screen and this is a known issue with the S6 and its

puffy battery of doom (tm) TWO bad units here.

Incidentally it does appear that the thermal compound does not work as well over time so worth doing a repaste at least

in principle: ripping it out and replacing with nice fresh pad may be viable.

Obviously do not use 3mm thick stuff as this will damage it, those clearances are very small.

I did this fix on an S3 once and it did run better afterwards though eventually died due to a battery issue.

Cough I *HATE* PMICs /Cough.

Anyone know where to get the long ribbon cable from? have one where the HDD light blinks when you lightly touch the middle of cable so possibly corroded or otherwise failed. HDD does not boot either, tried trimming 1mm from each end but no effect.

If all else fails I may try metering it and bridge just the single damaged (SATA data?) wire with some modwire.

Note, for folks with damaged foil(s) a suitable replacement is that copper tape sold for deterring slugs.

If you’re careful its possible to overlap it and reattach with 3M Z axis tape.

I did this on an old Huawei with similar problem and it worked fine, also handy for reattaching broken screen flex but its a *lot* harder.

If you have a good glass with bad flex (how?) then this sometimes does work.

Re. dodgy touch screen it can’t be replaced as part of the assembly but can sometimes be worth checking that the secondary flex hasn’t come unplugged from the board: its a PITA to check but if you get it out try cleaning with IPA in case of fingerprints.