Step 1: Learn how to do that.
Step 2: With your new-found skills, get a high paying job so you can just buy what you need and don't have to do that any more.

The simple answer is, it depends. I steal from one board to repair another board all the time.

If the part being exchanged is completely identical, then in most cases it can be, it's just a matter of a little soldering work.

If it's not identical, but in the same package and of a different model/version for example, then it's a lot more involved to determine if it's able to be used as a drop-in replacement.

Either way, just do your research first. 😀

Cut and paste hardware engineering is a bit more involved than cut and paste software engineering... since if you screw up hardware you've often got to restart from scratch with fresh parts, rather than reload from backup.

This is why, for all the effort involved in redesigning stuff to work with newer stuff, that people prefer to do it with a part that is still available in somewhat large quantities, even if it's NOS. Then at least you can blow a dozen up trying and still have one to work with when you learn from your mistakes. Reclaiming a part to learn how to use it is a bit like learning skydiving by trial and error.

kotel wrote on 2024-03-25, 16:28:

Hi

I recently was wondering if i can re-use motherboard components, like fire-wire , onboard audio and LAN chips to put them on a PCI card. Is it possible to do that? I have found datasheet for the NIC i wanna re-use.

Well,depends of the component. Most onboard chips were meant to work onboard. Usually LAN,video and sound were chipset domain. You can`t make a discrete card with the chipset.Some older systems used separate chips for video,lan,maybe even sound,but for sound I thing we`re going pentium classic era. So you technically can use some chips from a dead motherboard to use it in a discrete card. I find old chips from these motherboards very suited for custom keychains,also. But there is a difference in building a card from scratch and replace the dead component from a card with the same one from a dead motherboard. In both cases I find little use besides ,well,just having fun.

It also pays to note that manufacturers sometimes (and even more so these days) use custom components that you wont be able to use on anything other than boards of the same series, if at all.

When it comes to newer hardware like you're talking about, for me personally, unless it's the exact same chip being swapped, it all comes down to if it's worth the time and effort to attempt the repair. If I'm not 100% sure based on the info I can find in the Google machine that it can work, I don't bother. I don't want to waste time or possibly cause more damage.

On older hardware, what I work on most often, it's much easier becasue much of it is relatively well documented. On newer hardware, that's often not the case. Again, if I'm not completely certain, I don't attempt it.

kotel wrote on 2024-03-25, 16:28:

Hi

I recently was wondering if i can re-use motherboard components, like fire-wire , onboard audio and LAN chips to put them on a PCI card. Is it possible to do that? I have found datasheet for the NIC i wanna re-use.

Yes, it is possible, yet often times it is hard to find all the information like datasheets & pinouts, but it won't be easy.

weedeewee wrote on 2024-03-25, 20:49:

kotel wrote on 2024-03-25, 16:28:

Hi

I recently was wondering if i can re-use motherboard components, like fire-wire , onboard audio and LAN chips to put them on a PCI card. Is it possible to do that? I have found datasheet for the NIC i wanna re-use.

Yes, it is possible, yet often times it is hard to find all the information like datasheets & pinouts, but it won't be easy.

yes, i like the idea of this kind if re-use more than i would try it in practice - largely for the reason you gave (plus tiny components are harder to extract and use without messing them up)