over the past month or so i've been gradually making headway on a CPS3 multikit. everything that i need is here except for SIMMs & a SCSI2SD, which are currently tied up in the post & should arrive next week.
i bought a motherboard advertised as junk, both on a gamble & also on the merit that they suddenly seem to have both disappeared & jumped up in value at the same time, so it was the only one available to me. when it arrived i quickly sighted some corrosion around the lower most row of pins on the PPU.
http://imgur.com/LMnIpJB
i immediately set to cleaning it with isopropanol & a toothbrush.
http://imgur.com/LFTsSog
i also quickly drove up to my friend who does all my fine-pitch soldering for me & asked if he could verify that the pins were properly making contact & resolder them if they weren't. he agreed, found a few bung pins, bent them back onto the chip & soldered them to their correct traces. it seemed to me that some of the pins still weren't making contact, but with no security cart to boot up the system, i didn't make noise.
http://imgur.com/a/wMqP5
a few days ago i received a dead security cart in the mail with which to test the board/flash a multikit BIOS into. i plugged it in & was presented with a screen full of rainbow garbage. reboot, black & white garbage. reboot, different set of garbage again, & so on. it seemed to be the same few sets of garbage. i assumed this meant i simply had a dead cart, which i already knew, so i want back to my mate's house again today to get the BIOS swapped. he swapped it, everything went smooth. i bought the multi BIOS pre-programmed so i'm assuming it was flashed correctly, but i'm 99% sure it's fine. a friend of my friend will be testing my modded sec cart on his working CPS3 soon. after we tried the SIMM-less CPS3 with the modded security cart, we still got the same garbage screens, but with different patterns. assuming this means that the PPU was still bad, i set to work on the PPU. at one point i had managed to reflow the solder on every single pin on that row & reconnect a broken-off pin, making sure with a multimeter they were 100% all making contact correctly, but there was still just garbage on screen.
i kept dicking with it & dicking with it & i made a few terrible mistakes. now it seems like i've exhausted my options. by the time i left the thing alone, it was much worse off than when i had it all connected. i feel really bad about it, but i'm also confused as to whether i was just adding insult to injury or not seeing as the board didn't work even when all the pins of the PPU were making contact with the correct places on the PCB.
http://imgur.com/a/IVchy
so now i'm at this point: is this a bad PPU? is this a good PPU making bad contact with destroyed pads? should i never touch an iron again in my life? those pins were not making contact with the pads before i reflowed them.
now that i've come this far i'm willing to pay return shipping + labour for anybody who wants to fix this. i think it'd need a full hot air rework. i'm opening my wallet up to get raped here because of how bad i feel about possibly wrecking this board. i'm located in melbourne, australia.
i'd also be open to offers of replacement PPUs off of broken boards or replacement motherboards.
i bought a motherboard advertised as junk, both on a gamble & also on the merit that they suddenly seem to have both disappeared & jumped up in value at the same time, so it was the only one available to me. when it arrived i quickly sighted some corrosion around the lower most row of pins on the PPU.
http://imgur.com/LMnIpJB
i immediately set to cleaning it with isopropanol & a toothbrush.
http://imgur.com/LFTsSog
i also quickly drove up to my friend who does all my fine-pitch soldering for me & asked if he could verify that the pins were properly making contact & resolder them if they weren't. he agreed, found a few bung pins, bent them back onto the chip & soldered them to their correct traces. it seemed to me that some of the pins still weren't making contact, but with no security cart to boot up the system, i didn't make noise.
http://imgur.com/a/wMqP5
a few days ago i received a dead security cart in the mail with which to test the board/flash a multikit BIOS into. i plugged it in & was presented with a screen full of rainbow garbage. reboot, black & white garbage. reboot, different set of garbage again, & so on. it seemed to be the same few sets of garbage. i assumed this meant i simply had a dead cart, which i already knew, so i want back to my mate's house again today to get the BIOS swapped. he swapped it, everything went smooth. i bought the multi BIOS pre-programmed so i'm assuming it was flashed correctly, but i'm 99% sure it's fine. a friend of my friend will be testing my modded sec cart on his working CPS3 soon. after we tried the SIMM-less CPS3 with the modded security cart, we still got the same garbage screens, but with different patterns. assuming this means that the PPU was still bad, i set to work on the PPU. at one point i had managed to reflow the solder on every single pin on that row & reconnect a broken-off pin, making sure with a multimeter they were 100% all making contact correctly, but there was still just garbage on screen.
i kept dicking with it & dicking with it & i made a few terrible mistakes. now it seems like i've exhausted my options. by the time i left the thing alone, it was much worse off than when i had it all connected. i feel really bad about it, but i'm also confused as to whether i was just adding insult to injury or not seeing as the board didn't work even when all the pins of the PPU were making contact with the correct places on the PCB.
http://imgur.com/a/IVchy
so now i'm at this point: is this a bad PPU? is this a good PPU making bad contact with destroyed pads? should i never touch an iron again in my life? those pins were not making contact with the pads before i reflowed them.
now that i've come this far i'm willing to pay return shipping + labour for anybody who wants to fix this. i think it'd need a full hot air rework. i'm opening my wallet up to get raped here because of how bad i feel about possibly wrecking this board. i'm located in melbourne, australia.
i'd also be open to offers of replacement PPUs off of broken boards or replacement motherboards.
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, that boards looks like it has seen better days.
