I took a knife to my laptop and cut several circuits on my laptop's motherboard for reasons which will not be stated. I now want to fix it up, but I don't know where to start. What materials do I need, and how would I go about fixing these circuits. I know exactly where I made my cuts, and I was thinking I could take some copper wire or something and lay it down, maybe solder it on? But, I don't know if this is the best way. Thank you for your time and interest.
Hi, First, model of Laptop? Your level of electronics knowledge? If you're not trolling and serious about it, just replace the mobo. Hopefully your cpu is in a socket, not permanently soldered in. eBay is a good place to try for replacement.
Not looking for a replacement, as I already bought a new laptop. My knowledge of electronics is all software side, I have never worked with hardware like this before. I am serious about fixing it however. I have taken most of the case off, a little is left, but I believe with a few more screws it will come off quite nicely.
Here's what you need to do. Take a framing hammer. Fold the laptop shut. Lay it on a concrete floor Give it three blows in the center just like you are nailing home a 16d sinker.
That should fix it for good.
Glad to help.
Reminds me of when I bent about fifty pins while setting a CPU into a motherboard.
Get a short length of appliance power cord and cut about an inch of it off. Then clean the coating off the traces you cut. Pull some strands of the fine bare wires out of the 1 inch piece of cord. Use a small soldering iron and "bridge" the cut traces with the wire. Cut off the excess. Using a decent solder and some good soldering flux will make this a lot easier. Be sure you have a good light and a magnifying glass to check your work. Clean the repair with alcohol to get any remaining flux off. If you're real careful you can clean the coating off the board and cut the excess fine wire with a X-acto knife.
Your chances of repairing your motherboard using my method are as good as any. Probably better. When I got my last laptop, I got the new Circuit City guarantee that covers ANY damage. I could do the hammer repair method with MINE, and I would end up with a new laptop that worked perfectly.
I just thought it would work as well with yours.
Please keep us posted as to how those repairs on the microwire circuits are coming. It will be very interesting. If you are able to repair it, you should apply at NASA or at least at a major computer company. They will have you doing A+ repair work at $8 per hour, but I bet they would bump you up a bit when they see your abilities.
Hi, I don't know specifics of damages suffered. If it's on mobo itself I never saw/heard anyone repairing them. I know components,ribbon type flex cables can be replaced but if knife caused a deep scratch across mobo and cause damage to etch runs, I don't think it is possible to reconnect them. I can do SMT work, am mil-spec soldering certified in my working days. But I don't know how to reconnect that hair line size etch runs. Mobo is multi-layer as well. Not just double side. How about a few pictures to show the damage.
Chances are excellent from the little description you give that the board will not be repairable by you or anyone else, regardless of skill level or equipment. The reason is that the runs are not just on the surface. You have no doubt nicked traces in other layers of the board. It doesn't take much! Can't be repaired. Simple as that.
If you need this laptop to work again, your only hope is to find another of the same model on Ebay with a bad hard drive or screen for very cheap, and swap out the board.
better to buy a used identical unit and move the hard drive, sorry this is one that cant be fixed for a resonable amount of $$, or get a new motherboard.
Yes I have repaired things like this. Depends on how much damage you've done, how big the gaps are, how patient you are. My method is like the above poster. I would add: I use a silver bearing solder (if it's really fine I "draw down" the solder), extremely fine tip, temperature controlled iron, I also try to stagger the repairs soldering micro traces that are adjacent to each other will send you to the funny farm. If you can't do that you can do micro wires point to bridge the damage at a different point on the trace. I also have an free arm magnifier. One like the dentist uses or micro surgeons use would be indispensable. Richard
I've replaced soldered-on components on a laptop motherboard before. It was kind of scary, but not all that hard to do. The hardest part was getting to the mobo.
There's no harm in trying to bridge the cut traces to fix it; if it doesn't work he can try to find another working system with a broken screen etc. to strip for parts. That's often cheaper than buying a new part, and he gets a spare keyboard and stuff out of the deal.
I agree there is no harm in trying, but there is also no (ZERO) hope it will be successful. It's a wasted effort. That's why I suggested he simply go for the solution that will work.
If the only thing you cut was solder-traces on the surface, than the only thing you should need is a soldering iron, more solder, and thorazine. If you hit any components, even just the pins, you should replace the entire component.
If you did not violate the integrity of the pre-preg dielectric material (this is the material the the copper is etched onto) to the inner layers, then chances are that it is repairable.
Gluing wires down and trying to solder them is one idea but this is not structurally sound because theses traces are very fragile. You would probably create another stress point along the trace and then it would break there. This is almost next to impossible to do.
If you can follow the trace from both ends and find vias (these are holes that transition the circuit from one layer to another) you could attach a wire to these vias and bridge the cut. That might work. However, you need really thin wire to do this (30 AWG or smaller)
Either method you will need:
A microscope, conductive epoxy, solder mask, an exacto knife and a steady hand. Links to these products:
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This is my preferred method.
First, carefully scrape back the existing solder mask (the green coating on the board usually but can be some other color) of the existing circuit trace to expose some good copper, and also the around affected area where the epoxy will be applied. Be careful not to cut anymore traces as they are probably bunched tightly together. Clean with denatured alcohol. Let dry. Place a small bead of the epoxy using the supplied syringe to bridge the gap of the cut. Let dry, then apply the solder mask
This is a tough job and chances are it might not work. You have alot of variables against you to start. I have done this before on other types of cards but I had much thicker traces to deal with. For me, this has worked on 8 mil traces and larger. Circuit traces on a mobo are typically 4 mils or less, that's
Depending on the traces that you cut (primarily the speed of signals sent along those traces) you may not be able to repair them. By adding additional length/resistance/capacitance to the trace, the repair could change the way signal travels on the trace. In principle, data travelling at very high speeds on the repaired traces could be unreliable. You can go ahead and try if you like, but even if you repair them correctly, there is no guarantee that the motherboard will work correctly. Hopefully the traces you cut were low speed or power traces.
unless he is good at soldering PC boards he is probably better off finding a local private computer tech and getting his or her opinion. We have one of those here, my friend nick who has got me out of a couple jams cheap.
although I never did anything like this.worst was connections pulled loose and I had no idea where they went:(
my mom got mad once and smashed a radio:( I am still looking for one like it. Today its a collectible model:( Worth hundreds of bucks!
!!!!!!!!!! I SERIOUSLY SUGGEST THE ORIGINAL POSTER SEEK COUNCLING OR ANGER MANAGEMENT CLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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