Hi all,

I've been fighting with a compaq armada e500 notebook, trying to get it to
recognise PCMCIA cards. Long story short, everything was working, someone
dropped the laptop and screwed the hard drive, and now I beleive the PCMCIA
controller is screwed too. I put a new drive back in the machine and
reloaded XP, but it never detects the PCMCIA controller, letalone any cards
I insert.

I have a second identical notebook (another armada e500). If I put the same
hard drive and same wireless card into the second notebook, it picks up two
texas instruments pcmcia controllers (seen under device manger -> pcmcia
adapters) and then the card itself (belkin wireless nic). Putting the drive
back in the first machine yields no pcmcia entries and nothing when I insert
the card.

I've seen the PCMCIA connectors themselves break and prevent any card being
recognised, but this is different - it doesn't even recognise that the
laptop supports PCMCIA.

Any ideas on why the controller would fail ?

Chris

"Skeleton Man" <invalid@guestwho.com> wrote in message
news:eridnQVTpqAc7F7VnZ2dnUVZ_jSdnZ2d@wightman.ca. ..
> Hi all,
>
> I've been fighting with a compaq armada e500 notebook, trying to get it to
> recognise PCMCIA cards. Long story short, everything was working, someone
> dropped the laptop and screwed the hard drive, and now I beleive the
> PCMCIA
> controller is screwed too. I put a new drive back in the machine and
> reloaded XP, but it never detects the PCMCIA controller, letalone any
> cards
> I insert.
>
> I have a second identical notebook (another armada e500). If I put the
> same
> hard drive and same wireless card into the second notebook, it picks up
> two
> texas instruments pcmcia controllers (seen under device manger -> pcmcia
> adapters) and then the card itself (belkin wireless nic). Putting the
> drive
> back in the first machine yields no pcmcia entries and nothing when I
> insert
> the card.
>
> I've seen the PCMCIA connectors themselves break and prevent any card
> being
> recognised, but this is different - it doesn't even recognise that the
> laptop supports PCMCIA.
>
> Any ideas on why the controller would fail ?
>
> Chris
>
>

Yes, it was of course damaged when the machine was dropped.
If you are good at watch repair <g> you could take the machine apart and
investigate further...
Otherwise ...as a workaround...you may be able to get by with USB devices

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 02:16:49 -0400, "Skeleton Man"
<invalid@guestwho.com> wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I've been fighting with a compaq armada e500 notebook, trying to get it to
>recognise PCMCIA cards. Long story short, everything was working, someone
>dropped the laptop and screwed the hard drive, and now I beleive the PCMCIA
>controller is screwed too. I put a new drive back in the machine and
>reloaded XP, but it never detects the PCMCIA controller, letalone any cards
>I insert.
>
>I have a second identical notebook (another armada e500). If I put the same
>hard drive and same wireless card into the second notebook, it picks up two
>texas instruments pcmcia controllers (seen under device manger -> pcmcia
>adapters) and then the card itself (belkin wireless nic). Putting the drive
>back in the first machine yields no pcmcia entries and nothing when I insert
>the card.
>
>I've seen the PCMCIA connectors themselves break and prevent any card being
>recognised, but this is different - it doesn't even recognise that the
>laptop supports PCMCIA.
>
>Any ideas on why the controller would fail ?
>
>Chris
>

I suspect that the impact has caused a crack in the circuit
board breaking a trace, or some surface mount component's
solder joint has broken. You could disassemble and examine
it, though doing so and finding, then fixing such a fault
becomes harder and harder as boards become denser and use
more BGA components.

>I suspect that the impact has caused a crack in the circuit
>board breaking a trace, or some surface mount component's
>solder joint has broken. You could disassemble and examine
>it, though doing so and finding, then fixing such a fault
>becomes harder and harder as boards become denser and use
>more BGA components.

Dissasembly is no problem. Compaq has excellent (free) documentation on the
whole process (have done it with model before). Finding and fixing is going
to be the fun part.

I've never soldered surface mount.. I tried once with my regular 30W pencil
tip iron but it just made a mess (legs soldered together).

I am thinking I need solder paste to re-apply to the pads, and then use hot
air to reflow ? (instead of using coiled solder and an iron)

Chris

"Skeleton Man" <invalid@guestwho.com> wrote in message
news:yJednfYvirNih1nVnZ2dnUVZ_sjinZ2d@wightman.ca. ..
> >I suspect that the impact has caused a crack in the circuit
> >board breaking a trace, or some surface mount component's
> >solder joint has broken. You could disassemble and examine
> >it, though doing so and finding, then fixing such a fault
> >becomes harder and harder as boards become denser and use
> >more BGA components.
>
> Dissasembly is no problem. Compaq has excellent (free) documentation on
the
> whole process (have done it with model before). Finding and fixing is
going
> to be the fun part.
>
> I've never soldered surface mount.. I tried once with my regular 30W
pencil
> tip iron but it just made a mess (legs soldered together).
>
> I am thinking I need solder paste to re-apply to the pads, and then use
hot
> air to reflow ? (instead of using coiled solder and an iron)
>
> Chris
>
>

The break may or may not be obvious...
and depending where it's broken...may be difficult to repair...
but at any rate, if you do need to solder ...be sure to use extreme caution,
fine solder and a fine soldering tip.
Paste is not necessary with rosin-core solder

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 14:19:58 -0400, "Skeleton Man"
<invalid@guestwho.com> wrote:

>>I suspect that the impact has caused a crack in the circuit
>>board breaking a trace, or some surface mount component's
>>solder joint has broken. You could disassemble and examine
>>it, though doing so and finding, then fixing such a fault
>>becomes harder and harder as boards become denser and use
>>more BGA components.
>
>Dissasembly is no problem. Compaq has excellent (free) documentation on the
>whole process (have done it with model before). Finding and fixing is going
>to be the fun part.

May not be hard, but takes a fair amount of time and desk
space to take the entire thing apart enough to pull the
whole circuit board out for a good examination.


>
>I've never soldered surface mount.. I tried once with my regular 30W pencil
>tip iron but it just made a mess (legs soldered together).

I can't know what went wrong, but common issues are using
too much solder and too little flux, a dirty tip that
doesn't conduct heat well, a tip that isn't tinned well,
too large a tip or the wrong shape tip. I wouldn't try to
solder anything small with a generic $5 Radio Shack iron if
that's what you're using, but some cheap irons are suitable
enough for the job even if their lower quality results in
them not lasting very long and taking more time for thermal
recovery after soldering larger joints.

The following kit for example is pretty good for the price,
even if it is junk it would do a few hundreds of joints
under normal circumstances at least.
http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=16431+TL
Here's one a little more suited to delicate, heat sensitive
parts because of the temperature control though in the grand
scheme of things it's also junk.

http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=15860+TL

Something like a Hakko 936 is a good entry-level station for
longer term use.
http://www.hakko.com/english/products/hakko_936.html
Aoyue makes a clone of this which looks almost identical,
works about as well but probably won't last as long due to
minor differences in construction between the Chinese and
Japanese. The Aoyue is also sold with many house-brand
customized faceplates like seen in the 2nd link.
I can't seen to get Aoyue's product page to load at the
moment so here it is on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Aoyue-936-Sold.../dp/B000VINMRO
and here as a relabel,
http://www.mpja.com/prodinfo.asp?number=15140+TL

Edit: The Aoyue page finally loaded, took a few minutes to
do so,
http://www.aoyue.com/en/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=372



>
>I am thinking I need solder paste to re-apply to the pads, and then use hot
>air to reflow ? (instead of using coiled solder and an iron)

If it's a BGA chip, yes you will have to use hot air. In
that case you might have to pull the whole chip off, put
solder paste on each pad and then resolder it down though if
it's BGA it's going to be very difficult if not impossible
to determine if the chip itself has a solder joint problem
or if it is just some other chip or crack that went
undetected. At some point the risk will be whether you're
endangering the rest of the board by working on it, if it
would be better to have it work as much as it does without
PCMCIA functionality.

Otherwise, if it's just a broken solder joint you may not
need solder paste even, just to put down some flux and
reheat the joint to make the solder reflow (with an iron).

If you end up with two pins bridged by excess solder, use
desoldering braid to remove the excess. If the solder
doesn't seem to want to wick into the braid you may need the
iron a little hotter and to pre-flux (or if the braid had
flux in it already as many do, then add a little more flux
to replace what was cooked away on the first failed attempt)
the braid. It should wick away excess solder fairly easily.
The main thing is, try not to add more solder to a joint
until you're sure you have to, always first try reheating
the joint with just flux applied since the original solder
is still there... and with a tinned iron tip, you can just
barely overtip the tip and so long as there's flux on the
joint some of the solder on the iron tip will flow onto the
joint too.

Use an iron when possible. If you think it's not your iron,
that you just need some practice on surface mount parts,
find some old junked circuit board and practice on it before
attempting the laptop.

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 15:51:43 -0500, "philo"
<philo@privacy.net> wrote:

>
>"Skeleton Man" <invalid@guestwho.com> wrote in message
>news:yJednfYvirNih1nVnZ2dnUVZ_sjinZ2d@wightman.ca ...
>> >I suspect that the impact has caused a crack in the circuit
>> >board breaking a trace, or some surface mount component's
>> >solder joint has broken. You could disassemble and examine
>> >it, though doing so and finding, then fixing such a fault
>> >becomes harder and harder as boards become denser and use
>> >more BGA components.
>>
>> Dissasembly is no problem. Compaq has excellent (free) documentation on
>the
>> whole process (have done it with model before). Finding and fixing is
>going
>> to be the fun part.
>>
>> I've never soldered surface mount.. I tried once with my regular 30W
>pencil
>> tip iron but it just made a mess (legs soldered together).
>>
>> I am thinking I need solder paste to re-apply to the pads, and then use
>hot
>> air to reflow ? (instead of using coiled solder and an iron)
>>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>
>The break may or may not be obvious...
>and depending where it's broken...may be difficult to repair...
>but at any rate, if you do need to solder ...be sure to use extreme caution,
>fine solder and a fine soldering tip.
>Paste is not necessary with rosin-core solder
>

The thing is, even if rosin-core solder has the flux in it
already, the component already had (in theory) enough solder
on the joint so what tends to cause excessive solder buildup
and leads being bridged by the solder is to add more solder
when all that might've been needed was the flux, or in the
case of paste it still has a higher solder:flux ratio than
rosin core solder does. A bottle of something like this
comes in really handy sometimes, it's just a shame it
doesn't come with a needle tipped cap for easier application
without having to buy a 2nd bottle.

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/...8582302304f a
The above product can be bought at a few different places
including
http://www.elexp.com/che_5835.htm
http://www.web-tronics.com/835-100ml.html

or these days it's as easy or easier to find flux pens like
http://www.web-tronics.com/roflpenugron.html

or I think Digikey and either Mouser and/or Newark, also
sell the pens, then there's Allied
http://www.alliedelec.com/Search/Sea...11 C3DADD9F59

IMO, never add solder to a pre-existing solder joint unless
some of that solder was removed or there is no other way...
or unless it is clear that the original manufacturing
process didn't use enough solder though this latter
situation is rare. Then again, if a component itself is
cracked and had to be replaced with a new part, then it
stands to reason that some of the solder may come off with
it and at least a tiny bit more may need to be added. I'd
still use a little extra flux, it helps tin and flow so much
better than without.

"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
news:0lh8c49jg5s6g02mo8a0i391oafagqc6rp@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 15:51:43 -0500, "philo"
> <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Skeleton Man" <invalid@guestwho.com> wrote in message
> >news:yJednfYvirNih1nVnZ2dnUVZ_sjinZ2d@wightman.ca ...
> >> >I suspect that the impact has caused a crack in the circuit
> >> >board breaking a trace, or some surface mount component's
> >> >solder joint has broken. You could disassemble and examine
> >> >it, though doing so and finding, then fixing such a fault
> >> >becomes harder and harder as boards become denser and use
> >> >more BGA components.
> >>
> >> Dissasembly is no problem. Compaq has excellent (free) documentation on
> >the
> >> whole process (have done it with model before). Finding and fixing is
> >going
> >> to be the fun part.
> >>
> >> I've never soldered surface mount.. I tried once with my regular 30W
> >pencil
> >> tip iron but it just made a mess (legs soldered together).
> >>
> >> I am thinking I need solder paste to re-apply to the pads, and then use
> >hot
> >> air to reflow ? (instead of using coiled solder and an iron)
> >>
> >> Chris
> >>
> >>
> >
> >The break may or may not be obvious...
> >and depending where it's broken...may be difficult to repair...
> >but at any rate, if you do need to solder ...be sure to use extreme
caution,
> >fine solder and a fine soldering tip.
> >Paste is not necessary with rosin-core solder
> >
>
> The thing is, even if rosin-core solder has the flux in it
> already, the component already had (in theory) enough solder
> on the joint so what tends to cause excessive solder buildup
> and leads being bridged by the solder is to add more solder
> when all that might've been needed was the flux, or in the
> case of paste it still has a higher solder:flux ratio than
> rosin core solder does. A bottle of something like this
> comes in really handy sometimes, it's just a shame it
> doesn't come with a needle tipped cap for easier application
> without having to buy a 2nd bottle.
>
>
http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/...8582302304f a
> The above product can be bought at a few different places
> including
> http://www.elexp.com/che_5835.htm
> http://www.web-tronics.com/835-100ml.html
>
> or these days it's as easy or easier to find flux pens like
> http://www.web-tronics.com/roflpenugron.html
>
> or I think Digikey and either Mouser and/or Newark, also
> sell the pens, then there's Allied
>
http://www.alliedelec.com/Search/Sea...11 C3DADD9F59
>
> IMO, never add solder to a pre-existing solder joint unless
> some of that solder was removed or there is no other way...
> or unless it is clear that the original manufacturing
> process didn't use enough solder though this latter
> situation is rare. Then again, if a component itself is
> cracked and had to be replaced with a new part, then it
> stands to reason that some of the solder may come off with
> it and at least a tiny bit more may need to be added. I'd
> still use a little extra flux, it helps tin and flow so much
> better than without.
>

The worst thing I ever had to do was resolder a smt capacitor
back onto a HD controller board. I got some good magnifying lenses
and some very fine silver solder and very carefully got it fixed.
But boy was that tough...one has to be very careful.

That was a few years back and the drive is still working fine.

The secret is to only do that type of work when well rested...
I had the sense to quit the job that was running late into the night...
and did it after a good rest!

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 17:39:05 -0500, "philo"
<philo@privacy.net> wrote:


>The worst thing I ever had to do was resolder a smt capacitor
>back onto a HD controller board. I got some good magnifying lenses
>and some very fine silver solder and very carefully got it fixed.
>But boy was that tough...one has to be very careful.

One thing I like to do with tiny parts is put a tiny dot of
clear nail polish on the bottom of a small part so it's held
in place while soldering. There's probably a better
adhesive to use for the job like whatever motherboard
manufacturers use, but I find nail polish good enough and
it's easy enough to get the part back off later if I just
stick a piece of cotton saturated with acetone up against
it... after sitting like that it'll stay gummy long enough
that I can even desolder the part if I needed to though I
haven't desoldered enough parts that I'd glued on like that
to be sure that easily removing it later is 100%
reproducible.

Silver solder usually has a higher melting point and so it's
harder to work with. Plus the flux tends to be more active
so that eats away soldering iron tips faster. I usually use
plain old Kester 63/37 mild rosin type, though I may have to
look into other brands when I use up my present roll because
the prices from my usual suppliers jumped up by almost 300%
in the last 18 months. I thought it was a misprint or
something but lead based solder has gotten a lot more
expensive at many places.


>
>That was a few years back and the drive is still working fine.
>
>The secret is to only do that type of work when well rested...
>I had the sense to quit the job that was running late into the night...
>and did it after a good rest!
>

I don't mind delicate work when it's late or I'm tired, but
I avoid working with anything that's live and over 50V in
those situations.

"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
news:le19c4holgi682d4o0tqu5i8pcl18ol8jb@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 17:39:05 -0500, "philo"
> <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
>
>
> >The worst thing I ever had to do was resolder a smt capacitor
> >back onto a HD controller board. I got some good magnifying lenses
> >and some very fine silver solder and very carefully got it fixed.
> >But boy was that tough...one has to be very careful.
>
> One thing I like to do with tiny parts is put a tiny dot of
> clear nail polish on the bottom of a small part so it's held
> in place while soldering. There's probably a better
> adhesive to use for the job like whatever motherboard
> manufacturers use, but I find nail polish good enough and
> it's easy enough to get the part back off later if I just
> stick a piece of cotton saturated with acetone up against
> it... after sitting like that it'll stay gummy long enough
> that I can even desolder the part if I needed to though I
> haven't desoldered enough parts that I'd glued on like that
> to be sure that easily removing it later is 100%
> reproducible.
>
> Silver solder usually has a higher melting point and so it's
> harder to work with. Plus the flux tends to be more active
> so that eats away soldering iron tips faster. I usually use
> plain old Kester 63/37 mild rosin type, though I may have to
> look into other brands when I use up my present roll because
> the prices from my usual suppliers jumped up by almost 300%
> in the last 18 months. I thought it was a misprint or
> something but lead based solder has gotten a lot more
> expensive at many places.
>


Well...luckily I have enough solder to last 20 years
as yes...the price of lead has sure gone up.

As to nail polish and acetone, though I'm sure they do the job...
I prefer to stay away from those nasty fumes...even though my soldering area
has an exhaust tube.

But next time I have a project like that I'll take your advice and not use
silver solder...
I only have a little bit of that left anyway.