Nice little laptop. Can you just reflow the solder joints or do you think the socket needs to be replaced?

Close inspection of the socket reveals it to be structurally sound, so it just seems like the solder gave out. Seeing it from the top, there's not much in the through holes. I haven't tackled it yet, I'm still trying to figure out where my 40W iron is, because a lot of power is needed because of ground and power planes. First thought was to squirt glue under the socket for additional strength, but should the mechanics of the socket give out, then it would become a bugger to change and might damage board... so I think I will glue a block alongside it.

Some waffle about plans, crossing fingers this resurrects it... This is gonna be a fast-ish late DOS machine I think. I believe I can get the S3 working in windows 3.11... ESS Solo, mayyyybe. Things I like are it has good keyboard feel, two SODIMM sockets, seems to have 64MB in, will give it a twin for 128, which should be plenty. It has two PCMCIA/Cardbus, one either side, so they don't get in the way of each other! .... one gets in the way of the floppy.... one gets in the way of the optical.... nah it should be somewhat fine as they tend to bloat upwards not downwards. One of them is going to need to take a NIC of some sort. Hoping the 6GB HDD works, I am already short of PATA 2.5" annnnd have been having horrible luck getting any, like twice I thought I could buy several at once in recent weeks, but they fell through on various counts. That's talking in cheapskate mode though, could probably have as many as I like at $50 a pop.

If it's just cracked solder then reflowing the connections should be all you need. If you can get the proper hardware drivers for win 3.11 then I'd say it would make a fine mobile gaming system.