Hi, A system I was using stopped allowing windows to boot normally and was very unstable, with help from this forum I eventually got to the opinion (although I have no absolutely irrefutable proof) that the mboard was no longer working. In this pic I have circled four small metal plates with a chip attached to them: In my board they are not clean like this but are actually very discoloured (no camera, sorry couldn't take pic). The colours are greeny orangey bluey, like the rainbow effect in spilt oil on a road. This discolouration covers basically the whole of the four plates (minus a small strip at one edge, about 5-10% left uncoloured). Also, the two pins that run off each chip that is sitting on each plate appear to be rusty at the point where they join the board. I guess this is what did it, the discolouration is pretty severe. Any one know what causes this? Is there something I could have done to hasten or stop this rusting, or whatever it actually is? I have no idea what those four little plates do. Cheers! EDIT: PS: This is completely unrelated to my other thread "Computer Dead" just incase anyone has looked at that too (different board).
when the components were soldered to the board, the board would get washed to remove the used flux that helps the solder to bond to the board. i guess the board didn't get washed or the board did before those components were added. also possible those components were replaced because they were faulty & did not get cleaned properly.
It's funny.. I recognise that board. What has probably happened is one of the large capacitors (black tube things) has exploded throwing a load of corrosive and worse..conductive.. liquid all over the insides. The guilty one will probably seem a little off the board, and perhaps bent from veritcal. Saw something like 5 of these boards with similar faults before xmas. It seems like a power surge is responsible.
