Someone with electronics knowledge help

redfoxer

redfoxer

redfoxer

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Joined
10 Mar 2009
Posts
13
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Hi all,

I've accidentally chiped some component on my 360 motherboard and to be honest I have no engineering background and have no idea what i've did. All I know is it hit the thing with a screw driver and it seems to have "popped" off at one of the soldered edges.

Any idea's on how to fix this? I'm guessing a soldering iron or something and melt it back in to place but will this fix it? I really don't know or own a soldering iron or the metal pieces that it melts.

Sorry if I sound pretty confused/stupid. As you can tell, i'm pretty much out of my depth since i knocked off a component somehow.

Thanks in advance,

Henry
 
Await the forum police that will point out that the world will end tomorrow since in posting that picture, it automatically means you've been playing pirated 360 games, beating children and being racist.
Looks like you may be luck and just need it soldering back in place. Time to buy a soldering iron, solder and flux? Not very hard. You might be lucky enough to simply be able to apply pressure back into the position it should be in and heat it vigorously until it sets back, assuming there is enough solder present to do this.
 
Cool, thanks for the advice guys. Was trying to fix the xbox since it got the red rings and is out of warranty. Figured, why not? Lol. Turns out this is why!

I think some of the green of the motherboard has come off with some of the capacitor although there is definately still some metal on the other side still on the motherboard. Hope this doesn't affect anything?

Once again, extremely appriciative of the reply guys.
 
It looks like some of the pad has been ripped away from the PCB and is still connected to capacitor. But there should be enough still left in place to solder too. So carefully solider the capacitor back in place, probably best to solder both ends. It also looks like the pad is part of the ground plane, this will act as a heat sink when trying to solder to, so you will need to get plenty of heat into it before the solder will take to the pad.
 
After "wiki"ing what a ground plane is, I think you are right. The problem I was getting after realising I had chipped that capacitor when turning on the xbox was 0003 xbox error code, which apparently translate to a "unclean" power supply or something to that effect so looks like we're right on the money here!

I will get myself a soldering iron and try to solder the capacitor back onto the board. Thanks again all who responded. Will let you know how it goes.

Big thumbs up (y).

Henry
 
quick tip. dont pick up the cheapest soldering iron you find. I got given a £4.99 one a few months ago, and after about 3 uses, its had rusted/oxidised from the tip to about halfway down the iron. this was acting as an insulator, meaning it would not melt the solder. the only way to get round it was to sand it off after every use (once id done it the first time, it just kept coming back...).

the final nail in the coffin was the other day when the tip just snapped off when it was cooling down :S.

i dont know any brands of soldering iron, but i can say, spend a bit of money on it, and you wint be disappointed.
 
Thanks for the tip. I was in fact thinking of getting a cheap 4.99 solder purely just for this one fix. I don't think I'll be soldering much after fixing this. I do have one worry though, will the heat from the solder damage te capacitor? It looks like the solder will be right next to the capacitor for a short while if I have to heat up the metal already on the leg and board.
 
It's a surface mounted component. I have a butane powered soldering iron, it's idea for fast soldering. Cheaper irons can often be underpowered and the additional time required to transfer enough heat to melt the solder can see the heat leak into the component.
 
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