CPU replacement is easy. And you should be able to harvest a CPU socket from pretty much any other socket 3 motherboard. Might as well upgrade it to a ZIF socket while you are at it.

That being said, it would probably be easier/cheaper to get a replacement motherboard than to try to repair that one.

Guessing that this is the same motherboard and tray. Looks like it to me from the pics.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Compaq-presa … 66/163464077994

Hello and welcome to the forum!

There is a fair chance that the motherboard is already dead, so I would not put too much time or money into it, if I were in your place. CPU pins "welded" to the precision-pins of that PGA socket, so most likely, you will have no other choice, but to have it desoldered. It is possible to push those precision-pins out of the socket and replace them, this is what I would try first before purchasing a new PGA socket.

486 CPUs are still all over the place and can be obtained cheaply, LIF sockets (same as yours) are slightly harder to come by, but there should still be some NOS left, try searching for "PGA socket 168, 169, 237, 238" on the net, ZIFs are 237 (socket 3) and 238 (socket 2), which are almost impossible to find as NOS.

If those stuck pins won't come out, desolder socket in one go with a heatgun.

Good luck and keep us informed on the progress 😉

Thanks for the feedback and advice. I think I'll grab that eBay mobo - comes with a mouse and badge (the badge on my case is very faded).

The CPU socket is definitely replaceable with some patience (and the right tools), but considering how severe the corrosion is on the case i doubt the traces on the board managed to make it out unscathed.

So, I ordered the mobo off of ebay, hopefully it's in working condition. At least it looks a lot better! Thanks for the find cyclone3d

While I wait, I dug out the CD and hard disk. As I suspected, both are dead. Well, they spin up but I'm not able to read any partition data off the hard drive and the Sony CD gives an error in Windows 10 that it is unable to power up.

Also, I took the bezel off of the monitor. There's a wire running from the side of the bezel and is connected to a jumper on a board where the motherboard tray plugged in. I had to snip it to get it out, it's a pair of wires inside, and I figure I'll strip and then reconnect later when I reassemble. Any idea what this may be?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0tvoi9rbcdezw3/IMG … 174239.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sfoakmvopdmylsm/IMG … 190649.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0t09o158ki914jk/IMG … 190722.jpg?dl=0

Any idea how to remove the rear bezel? I don't want to break the plastic pins.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ncqihsj6t6vycx4/IMG … 223435.jpg?dl=0

Well, never mind! Just a little extra effort pulling on the black inserts and they came right out.

johndias wrote:

Any idea what this may be?

Degauss knob?

Maybe? There's no knob or button there. From pictures of others I don't see where anything is missing on mine.

OK, I started putting things back together and given that I've done a cleanup and visual inspection of everything I decided to power it up.

The monitor comes on! However, nothing else happens. Now, I am not 100% confident in the board that provides power to the mobo, as it was (and still kind of is) nasty. But, I checked for continuity between the power connection and the edge connector by just running the lead across the pins and connections - I got tone. Lacking a schematic I don't think I can do much more.

My hunch is the monitor circuits are OK, I may just have a problem with the PC side of things. Any thoughts on how to trace this down?

Take your oscilloscope and look what the video signals look like (if there are any).

Great suggestion! Actually, if I could figure out how to connect another monitor to the mobo or connect another computer to the monitor that would be great. However, the connection between the two is an 11-pin cable and I'm not finding anything that tells me the pinout so I can make a VGA cable to test with.

Heat gun to remove the CPU socket ? Isn't that a bit too rough ?