Quote:
Originally Posted by MazdaMatt
"most" people can't fix "most" of today's electronics. and by most, i mean 99.99% of people.
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Yeah, I just got commended for that soldering by "Shamino" Tan on the VR-Zone forums, he holds several world records for overclocking
shamino tan - Google Search .
Quote:
Originally Posted by NiHaoMike
I would have used a scalpel to remove the insulation over the damaged trace and then soldered a strand of wire across it. Keeping the signal lines as close to the same length as possible is very important in high frequency circuits.
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Yes I did realize that, but it has been in use for over a year now (notice that photo is from 2007). Also the standard has been raised to "2.0" and received a near double boost in mhz, so for a version 1.1 link this is fine.
I would have done the as you suggest, if not for the fact that I needed the clearance so that it would fit in a PCI-Express x1 slot and the traces on the low-profile card were running through that area (I also managed to cut the +12v lead to the DDR2 power circuitry hidden on an internal power layer, but reconnected it externally).
Quote:
Originally Posted by MazdaMatt
nice fix  add some hot glue for longevity! Why on earth did you attack it with a power tool? |
To sum up, PCI-e buses are teamed serial connections comprised of 1 to 32 "links" (desktop PC's have at maximum 16 links per connector
http://www.naplestech.com/shopcart/bus_speeds.asp ). I wanted to hook up multiple displays with cheap readily available cards (and not saturate my PCI bus).
I learned that the PCIe standard auto-negotiates links and determined that I could operate a card on a single link. If I had any motherboards with a x4 connector I would have likely tried that, but x1 is the "standard".
Now that we are way off topic, I guess if Paul needed any SMD soldering done I could help out, but I am in California so it isn't the quickest way.