Here are the pictures of the back of the board. I can't believe I missed the other scrapes, they are very visible. I was so focused on the one big gouge. Another thing I noticed is that a lot of the pins are bent over on the back. I noticed a few with touching the solder pads of other pins, so I carefully bent them back up with some tweezers. I'm sure I missed a bunch, so I will look more closely here later.

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-10-27, 20:02:

Visible here is the scratched and damaged plastic on the VLB slots.
Here is a picture of the ISA slots that are slightly damaged. Unknown if that would cause issue.

Most likely caused by other boards or hardware laid on top and then rough handled. Have seen boards stacked on top of each other in a stack (no boxes, bags or padding) and was obvious some one pulled one out from above and the solder/pins from ISA slots scratched the board below. Just a guess in your case but likely. (or they kicked it across a driveway ;p )

Horun wrote on 2022-10-28, 01:19:

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-10-27, 20:02:

Visible here is the scratched and damaged plastic on the VLB slots.
Here is a picture of the ISA slots that are slightly damaged. Unknown if that would cause issue.

Most likely caused by other boards or hardware laid on top and then rough handled. Have seen boards stacked on top of each other in a stack (no boxes, bags or padding) and was obvious some one pulled one out from above and the solder/pins from ISA slots scratched the board below. Just a guess in your case but likely. (or they kicked it across a driveway ;p )

I don't know where the damaged happened. I can say that the 4 boards were packed in individual boxes in anti-static bags, wrapped in bubble wrap, and then they taped the 4 boxes together to make it one box to ship. I had never seen anyone do that before. It was pretty neat to see, honestly.

looks like someone is running a side business picking recycling facility trash end reselling as "not tested" 😀

Necrowares recent video shows how to deal with scratched traces https://youtu.be/trwg5QzkApk?t=445

You're probably right. I want to repair them so I can build machines with them and then give them away on my stream. I guess I'm not much better in the overall scheme of things.

I got my analyzer card. Plugged it in and booted up. Now I'm stuck again because the code it freezes on I can't find anywhere in the BIOS codes for Amibios. It throws a d3 code. I cannot seem to find what it is that is the issue.

Okay there was a manual buried under the foam in the box the card came in d3 indicates memory sizing next. So it can't find the memory at all?

ram address lines broken somewhere?

That is possible? There is those scratches on the the traces on the back of the board as shown above. I don't know if they are ram address lines. Heck, at this point I don't even know if all the ram I am trying is not EDO. I thought I had a 4MB fpm module but now I'm not sure.

I got by multimeter out and tested all of the traces. So the big gouge does not seem to have affected anything. However, all of the traces you can see gouged in the picture have no continuity as far as I can tell. I don't have a tone continuity tester so I have to look at the screen, and so I get a flash of numbers, but then it goes back to 1. When there is continuity a series of numbers count down to 0.000, but it doesn't do that on any of the traces. I followed the traces to solder points and via holes and I got nothing. Several of the traces connect directly to the Memory slots. But not the first slot. The first slot traces have no damage, but I still see nothing with the ram. I guess I need to figure out how to repair traces? I don't have the magnification or the wire or the steady hand I think to solder very tiny wires. I'm positive this board will work with repairs. I just can't do it myself I think.

Wait. I totally assumed your poste last week with scratch pictures was meant to say "I found and fixed those" 😀 yes, they all need patching up.

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-03, 04:29:

Wait. I totally assumed your poste last week with scratch pictures was meant to say "I found and fixed those" 😀 yes, they all need patching up.

I wish I could. I don't have a soldering tip small enough and I don't have any wires. I have watched I believe it's Necroware repair traces on Youtube, but I have no experience. I don't know. I would like to get it fixed and cased so I can give it away. I will have to see if I can find someone who can fix it if I can pay them. Sadly, the excellent repair man we had here passed away 6 years ago. He was a very good friend. No one else here does board level repair. I need to get some test boards with tiny traces to practice with before I tackle something like this.

-where is 'here'?
-you dont need tiny soldering tip, tiny tips are worthless and I dont know who, other than people who dont know what they are doing, they are aimed at. Even when micro soldering small SMD components I use big chisel/bevel tips and let flux and surface tension do all the work for me.
-the best wire (thin enamel coated) for this kind of repair is what is used in transformers, you can pull one from a piece of worthless salvage electronics. Either from power supply transformer or cell phone vibration motor windings.

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-03, 08:03:

-where is 'here'?
-you dont need tiny soldering tip, tiny tips are worthless and I dont know who, other than people who dont know what they are doing, they are aimed at. Even when micro soldering small SMD components I use big chisel/bevel tips and let flux and surface tension do all the work for me.
-the best wire (thin enamel coated) for this kind of repair is what is used in transformers, you can pull one from a piece of worthless salvage electronics. Either from power supply transformer or cell phone vibration motor windings.

- 'here' is where I live, in the middle of the US. I don't really know many retro community people who live here. I should get out and meet people, but my introverted nature gets the best of me far too often than I should let it.
- I don't have a chisel tip. My soldering iron takes T-5 tips, I believe? So if you have any recommendations on which brand and type I would appreciate the information.
- What gauge should I go for? I have a friend who suggested I use an old IDE cable to make some temp bodges to see if that corrects the issue before I try to repair the traces like I have seen on line. Is that a good idea? I don't think my skills of soldering are very good and I worry that I will ruin the board while testing this. I don't have anywhere that I can harvest the wires from transformers or cell phones, so if there is a place I can buy the wire, I will do that.

I know I shouldn't be worried about making the issue worse considering the board doesn't work currently. I just hope to fix this so it can go back out into the retro community. I would hate to be the cause of another Computer motherboard being un-usable.

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-11-04, 00:01:

- 'here' is where I live, in the middle of the US. I don't really know many retro community people who live here. I should get out and meet people, but my introverted nature gets the best of me far too often than I should let it.

find a local cellphone repair place, they will be able to patch those traces for you

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-11-04, 00:01:

- I don't have a chisel tip. My soldering iron takes T-5 tips, I believe? So if you have any recommendations on which brand and type I would appreciate the information.

anything that isnt a sharp needle tip, soldering is about heat transfer and thin sharp tips suck at it making you bump up temperature to work at all

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-11-04, 00:01:

- What gauge should I go for? I have a friend who suggested I use an old IDE cable to make some temp bodges to see if that corrects the issue before I try to repair the traces like I have seen on line. Is that a good idea? I don't think my skills of soldering are very good and I worry that I will ruin the board while testing this. I don't have anywhere that I can harvest the wires from transformers or cell phones, so if there is a place I can buy the wire, I will do that.

something like Frys Electronics Radio Shack, hmm Micro Center? they have small spools of wires, maybe they will have 30 gauge kynar/enamel wire
for junk hardware hit local goodwill, recycling centers and big store garbage bins

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-04, 09:21:

find a local cellphone repair place, they will be able to patch those traces for you

I called 4 different cell phone repair places. All but one of them said they wouldn't do it. The fourth place wanted to charge 600 bucks. So that's not feasible for me. Note that I didn't look at other local suburbs. Just specifically in the town that I live in, which is a bit small. I think they highballed me on price because they didn't want to say they wouldn't do it.

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-04, 09:21:

anything that isnt a sharp needle tip, soldering is about heat transfer and thin sharp tips suck at it making you bump up temperature to work at all

So the normal tip I use should work? It's just a T15-BLL. I also have a T15-ILS and a T15-D16 if one of those would work better.

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-04, 09:21:

something like Frys Electronics Radio Shack, hmm Micro Center? they have small spools of wires, maybe they will have 30 gauge kynar/enamel wire
for junk hardware hit local goodwill, recycling centers and big store garbage bins

I do have a Microcenter somewhat near by. I know their website is not 100% accurate, but the smallest gauge they have on the site for my local store is 24 gauge. Is that going to be small enough?

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-11-05, 19:50:

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-04, 09:21:

find a local cellphone repair place, they will be able to patch those traces for you

I called 4 different cell phone repair places. All but one of them said they wouldn't do it. The fourth place wanted to charge 600 bucks. So that's not feasible for me. Note that I didn't look at other local suburbs. Just specifically in the town that I live in, which is a bit small. I think they highballed me on price because they didn't want to say they wouldn't do it.

were those Apple service centers? 😀 I meant a local mall cellphone guy sitting somewhere in a corner replacing batteries, cracked screens and resoldering charging ports, that kind of cellphone repair.

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-11-05, 19:50:

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-04, 09:21:

anything that isnt a sharp needle tip, soldering is about heat transfer and thin sharp tips suck at it making you bump up temperature to work at all

So the normal tip I use should work? It's just a T15-BLL. I also have a T15-ILS and a T15-D16 if one of those would work better.

oh T15, you said T5 earlier so I didnt even bother. T5 is 900 series ancient tip over heating cartridge.
T15-BLL and T15-ILS have this appearance of being great for small SMD to a person that never did small SMD, personally I find those types of tips useless. T15-D16 is ok all around.

nathanieltolbert wrote on 2022-11-05, 19:50:

I do have a Microcenter somewhat near by. I know their website is not 100% accurate, but the smallest gauge they have on the site for my local store is 24 gauge. Is that going to be small enough?

might as well sacrifice old headphone cable

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-05, 20:35:

were those Apple service centers? 😀 I meant a local mall cellphone guy sitting somewhere in a corner replacing batteries, cracked screens and resoldering charging ports, that kind of cellphone repair.

I wouldn't contact an Apple service center. I want to fix the board, not have it replaced with a soldered down mess of a board that doesn't allow for any sort of upgradability. 🤣 But there are a bunch of other cell phone repair stores in nearby towns. The common thing I get is, 'we don't work on computer boards.' There were a couple of small computer stores that might do repair in the area, but they have all closed down in the last couple years. Probably thanks to the pandemic. They probably would have been fantastic.

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-04, 09:21:

anything that isnt a sharp needle tip, soldering is about heat transfer and thin sharp tips suck at it making you bump up temperature to work at all
oh T15, you said T5 earlier so I didnt even bother. T5 is 900 series ancient tip over heating cartridge.
T15-BLL and T15-ILS have this appearance of being great for small SMD to a person that never did small SMD, personally I find those types of tips useless. T15-D16 is ok all around.

Yes, I was wrong. For whatever reason I thought they were T-5. And when I went to look at T-5 tips, I saw that they didn't look like what my soldering iron used. So then I looked up my soldering iron to get the right type. I may have one of those T15-D16 tips here. When I bought my little solder iron, which is a low end KSGER it came with a dozen different tips.

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-11-04, 09:21:

might as well sacrifice old headphone cable

I don't have any old cables like that. Should I just buy some solid core 30 gauge off of Amazon?

This looks ok https://www.amazon.com/Treedix-Copper-Wrappin … l/dp/B08D6D1TKH
EDIT: but you still need to get a piece of ~20-30 year old electronics to practice on before doing the board. New proto boards/universal soldering kits are not the same as soldering old boards. I dont think I mentioned you could also look for local hacker/maker spaces and radio amateurs.