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Bad soldering is bad soldering. Microsoft's XBox 360 had huge issues with it. The problem is that it works from a QA perspective: They can test the thing for h
by astrodust 8y ago
Bad soldering is bad soldering. Microsoft's XBox 360 had huge issues with it.
The problem is that it works from a QA perspective: They can test the thing for hours and it'll run flawlessly. It's only when it goes through hundreds of heating/cooling cycles that it starts to break down and cause problems.
You really never know which product or vendor is going to suffer from it next. Every GPU vendor has had some issues.
I got red-ringed and I didn't swear off of buying Microsoft products forever.
- drewmol 8y agoI was gonna chime in on 360's and saw your comment. The best solution that didn't involve replacing solder was a reflow combined with case mods to add screws that better stabilized the board directly around the problem chips which limited board warping so the inevitable solder melting heat cycles did not result in connection failures upon cooling, IME. There was rumblings that lead-free solder was a requirement for 'toy' classification but I can't confirm.
- astrodust 8y agoThe whole industry was moving lead-free but the first companies to do it were the ones that had the least experience with how to manage the reflow temperature profiles. It's not just toys. Lead solder is being phased out for many applications.