Packard Bell PB486CD restoration (Part 1)

Today I would like to share with you a restoration project, which I was trying to finish for a very long time. It is a nice retro PC with some very unusual features. It had to be rescued and recently I made some progress which I would like to share with you. Have fun!
Music by Model Povedeniya
modelp.bandcam...
Patreon:
/ necroware

[@B1G_Dave]

I've said it before, but your repair skills are an inspiration. Your editing skills are just as good 👍🏽

[@86smoke]

This video really shows how much using a microscope helps fixing traces. Impressive work.

[@NutScrewGamer]

I don't have a retro PC but Necroware's way of speaking and explaining things got me hooked

[@logipilot]

Do you plan to get one? For starters, i recommend Pentium2 or 3 systems: the bios still looks like the 486 era and you have usb for easy data transfer. There are even baby AT boards for the old cases with big 5pin Keyboard 😅

[@dennisp.2147]

Have a look-about. There are plenty out there, just don't pay the high prices. You can still get decent vintage machines cheaply if you look. PIII and Athlon socket A/462 are a sweet spot for Windows 98 and early XP games.

[@NutScrewGamer]

@@logipilot Oh yeah, been planning to get one to surprise my mom. She used to play old source games back then

[@Yrouel86]

It's really impressive how not only you do a very fine job repairing these boards in and on itself but you also take the extra mile to make such repairs really neat. Some other folks while being very competent in the repair process itself don't bother with neatness and those boards have flying wires everywhere often not even bothering to cut them to length

[@pavelfara9333]

Absolutely! Necroware taught me to make it as clean as possible. Still my detailing is not as good as his but I have learned a lot! I hate bodge wire sticking all around...

[@Supercity2000]

What a repair. Super impressive, as usual. When I look at your videos, they leave with the impression that nothing is truly ever broken beyond repairs: it's just a question of how much time and energy one wants to put into saving these machines. Respect.

[@SyphistPrime]

Many would've considered this board unrepairable. You went the extra mile though and got it working. Absolutely insane.

[@vswitchzero]

Great work! It's amazing how much damage those batteries can leave in their aftermath. I used to be nervous washing PCBs with soap and water but started doing it with success recently. The boards turn out beautiful afterward 🙂

[@burntoutelectronics]

Yes! A new video! I’ve been bingeing your videos for the past week now and I can’t get enough!

[@serviciobsas]

Love your Work. Hope see you Soon!!!!

[@richhenry8004]

So much work. I wish i had this work ethic on my hobby projects.

[@smigbobvonsmelborp10]

Seeing you bring that board back to life was some serious operating-table work! never knew you could patch a board up like that.

[@clintthompson4100]

Necroware you really do take the words Computer Repair to it's purest aspect. Not just swapping out a dead part for a new one but truly replacing chips and wires on original equipment. Absolutely love the respect you give to these old machines. You sir see potential and treasure where others see junk and why bother. Thank you for your videos and keeping vintage machines like this around. Have a good one.

[@djdano2k]

Great work! I have no skills in soldering nor the tools and knowledge, and seeing a board damaged like this, would make me think it's for the scrap. This is a great inspiration for taking a challenge, and doing it the best one can do to make it work again!

[@catriona_drummond]

Excellent. This is a textbook battery damage repair video, showing the various techniques and some diagnostics too.

[@tony359]

Congratulations for the microscope! I also procrastinated one for a long time, thinking a magnifying lens would be enough. But it's another world :) Great repair video as usual! Rewarding to see the board posting!

[@charleston_]

Hope you're safe! Love your videos!

[@davefiddes]

Such a neat set of repairs. Congratulations. Your persistence and attention to detail is impressive!

[@nismo2070]

The first computer I purchased with my own money was a Packard Bell 486sx-33 system. Came with windows 3.1 installed. I spent a LOT of time playing Doom with my brother. We ran a phone line between my computer and our parent's computer so we could play against each other. So many good memories!

[@userperson5259]

Awesome and so much fun to watch...! I have a PB800 286. So nostalgic.

[@boriskender]

Great work! I was on edge of my chair for this one. The relief on end of video. :)

[@aleksandaryanakiev1824]

I'm using the same way of drilling the via if it's impossible to be cleaned, it's also a very gentle way to cleanup a multi-layer board ground vias that are notorious heat sinks. Years ago I bought a hand held tool with a small 3-jaw steal chuck in front to hold the small drill bits, which turned out to be super handy allowing perfect control. BTW the drill bits I got with it from china are with poor quality. I do recommend to go to a local machine supply shop and buy a new ones, they are pretty inexpensive and usually produce far more cleaner cuts. If needed I can share a picture of my tool. Another amazing repair video. Thank you 🙇

[@wintermute740]

That power supply. When I was a PC tech back in the day, I used one of that exact model as the power supply on my bench. It was an amazing little power supply, and served me well until it was finally completely displaced by ATX. Even then, I kept it around for the AT machines which still occasionally crossed my bench.

[@miketech1024]

Amazing work as always! I have lots of these Packard Bell machines. Sad to see the Varta demon has gotten its evil hands on them… I picked up those same drill bits for cleaning the vias a few weeks ago and they work amazingly well. Keep up the fantastic work!

[@jamesross3939]

Yet another highly satisfying repair. The microscope is very interesting and your comments on using one is very encouraging. Seems ideal for soldering smd components.

[@FaithyJo]

This same model was the family PC i gree up on! Brings back lots of memories!

[@vonhapen1]

That's true dedication. Just awesome... 👍🏼

[@SimonSideburns]

Such dedication for these old boards, and this one lives again. Top job.

[@BorgSwarm]

Wow! So much work and attention to detail. I love watching your videos. They have inspired me to gather a lot of retro hardware (my wife thinks I'm crazy) and tinker with making repairs. I thoroughly enjoy watching you bring these machines back to life. I wish I had your level of skill in this area but I still have a long way to go.

[@jarthurs]

Such patience on a board so many others would scrap! I spent a lot of time in the 90's tinkering with machines like these and looking back it's amazing we managed to do so much with processors that are toys compared to modern machines. A client recently gave me a pair of machines, an Athlon X2 3800+ with an ASUS SLI motherboard and a Dell Pentium 4 1.6GHz machine both fully working but even on very lightweight Linux installs so very very slow by modern standards.

[@dree6212]

I’m glad that the reparation paid off after so many hours of work. Good job.

[@RickBaconsAdventures]

That trace repair work was extremely impressive. I design and manufacture PCBs and have done this a couple times on this level. The board has to be irreplaceable and highly valuable for me to spend that much effort on it!

[@nm0490]

Good work. I could sense despair in your voice when you saw a barrel battery and oxidation on the motherboard because you knew how much work and devotion will be required to fix the motherboard.

[@southernflatland]

You're doing some beautiful soldering work! Little tip though, rather than trying to fight to hold loose wire ends down while soldering them, clean the board where necessary and use Kapton tape to temporarily hold the wires in place first. You should usually have no problem removing the tape afterwards in most situations, but yeah I've actually used that technique to solder wires as thin as a human hair onto micro ribbon cables inside cell phones.

[@RetroGadgetMan]

Impressive repairs. Glad you could save this board.

[@charonunderground8596]

Man... you are a master ! Greetings from Poland !

[@douglasnogueirademelo2345]

Amazing restoration, such like a craftsman! Congrats and thank you for the excellent content!

[@necro_ware]

Thank you very much for the kind words and your support!

[@RetroTinkerer]

Hello there! Damn I was already impressed with your voodoo thing before you had access to this microscope, it's super cool to see you working on this old motherboard and recover this 486, on another hands it would had ended as scrap or in a landfill. I'll be looking forward your next video. Thanks.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Epic fix!! It is hard doing these repairs when you really don't know for sure if that will revive the board. Most excellent!!

[@cndctrdjful]

Love your videos. So much skill. Thanks for sharing

[@magnusboman1576]

Impressive work as always!

[@darthtripedacus1]

Wonderful work good sir

[@BlackEpyon]

I've also had to repair Varta damaged boards before. It's a bit of a pain, but oh what a joy when you finally get it working again!

[@fft2020]

6 minutes :) Another delicious video by Necroware :)

[@envoycdx]

Love it! Looking forward to the next bit as always.

[@SobieRobie]

Congratulations, what a huge work!

[@SobieRobie]

The colour of the floppy drive reminds me Olivetti's machines.

[@StarDustForge]

Good work! Subscribed and exited to watch more. 👍

[@gt1man931]

Very good. I will be happy to follow this restoration and upgrade series. My first PC was a Packard Bell, 28 years ago.

[@therealjammit]

I sometimes use a pair of needle nose pliers that has smooth jaws to crush parts of the solid wires more flat to help with making a wider area to solder pins to or to "sneak" better under chips. A little file work also helps shaping the flattened areas. I like to use wire wrap wire (Kynar) for jumper wire.

[@FeArhsma21]

Nice job my friend can't wait to see your next video on this computer. God Bless, be safe and have a good one!

[@cheyopimienta]

15 yo version of me is really excited to see this 486 booting again!

[@spongerobert]

It's such a pity those batteries cause so much carnage in old computers. Great job on the repair though. It's super satisfying seeing a job well done.

[@NaoPb]

Very nice to see you got the board running. Impressive work on those repairs. My hat goes off to you.

[@Miasmark]

I got to my childhood Packard Bell 486 far too late and the traces had gone so bad that the tracks were no longer visible. glad you were able to put this one back together again at least enough to start working better.

[@Vile-Flesh]

Same. The Biostar motherboard from our Pionex family computer had a Varta barrel battery and it has some awful corrosion. I do plan to attempt to fix it so DOOM will pump through it's veins once again.

[@Edman_79]

And this is how religions are born. I've just witnessed a miracle! Unbelievable skill... Thanks for sharing with us.

[@necro_ware]

LoL 😂

[@teknologyguy5638]

I have to do this exact same repair in same way on 2 of the boards I have for this same system, very helpful information.

[@dennisp.2147]

My parents purchased the version of this computer without the CD and sound card in December of 1993, during my Junior year of college. As I recall it had some issues with the secondary IDE channel not wanting to deal with an IDE CD drive. Their machine had the soldered in 486SX-25. I ended up buying them a cheap Reveal Cd kit (which oddly enough had the SC400 sound card nearly identical to the one in this machine.) As I recall, they paid $750 for the machine bare and bought a generic 640x480 only 13" VGA monitor with a stupidly high dot-pitch that was almost unusable it was so fuzzy. The monitor lasted less than 6 months before the flyback went out and I replaced it for them with a 15" version.

[@turchenkow]

Cool and precise job! Enjoyed watching it!

[@pedrodaniellopesferreira2916]

Seeing you resurrecting those old computers is so satisfying. And a great journey to memory lane. I had one of those Creative 2x CD drives, it was bundled with a pair of speakers and the sb16 that also acted as its controller. In fact I remember seeing the Panasonic brand on the card, along side a marked "Sony" which I believe it could also control on a separate bus (and I think it was less than 40 pins).

[@ligametis]

I always wonder why do this? I see hundreds of similar old computers in good condition reaching my local recycling center. Nobody needs them.

[@jasonerickson4361]

I worked at Best Buy from the end of 1991 to summer of 1994. Back when they were just expanding out of their home base of Minnesota. They sold so many of these Packard Bell computers, I had my hands on lots of 386 (SX and DX) and 486s, pentiums at the end of my time there. I was an in-store PC tech for a couple of those years (pre-Geek Squad acquisition) and a real weakness I saw on those compact system was the PS/2 keyboard (and possibly mouse) ports failing from having the keyboard hot-plugged. I didn't do any board level repairs, so they all got sent back to the repair center. I don't know if they repaired them or if they got replacement boards from PB.

[@Wormetti]

Once again your necromancy skills work wonders!

[@mattsword41]

Your repair skills really are amazing! Can't imagine being able to solder that well!

[@raddaks2039]

Honestly your most impressive repair yet. I'm amazed you haven't been using a microscope before now! Our eyes aren't getting any younger.

[@djtongi]

Geile Arbeit, immer toll dir zuzuhören und jedes Mal bekomme ich wieder Lust, in meinen Keller zu gehen und meinen Tonnen an alten Mainboards auszugraben... 😅

[@joaoc_PT]

ITS ALIVEEEE awesome job, congratulations 👏

[@LFOSyncToo]

A relief that the board is working again. I for one very liked the fact that you washed this one with water and soap very thoroughly. Unfortunately I muss say I gringed a little bit on the IC removal action. It was such in a sorry state that replacing it would have been the way to go anyway. It would then had made sense to remove the old IC by cutting every leg and then remove them individualy from the board, which would have been much easier. I think it would have better preserved the pads and the board while saving a lot of time on tedious pads and trace repairs that you had to make in order to bring the board back to life...

[@horusfalcon]

Outstanding work, man! I truly admire your dexterity with fine wire - your board repair techniques ought to be taught in electronics schools. I look forward to the next parts of this project.

[@necro_ware]

Please no :) don't learn electronics from a software engineer. What I do is just a hobby.

[@j.l.gonzalez8918]

I have an NCR which uses those 40 pin ZIP DRAM. Mine are NEC D424260V-70, which are not very common. I got the SOJ40 equivalent modules (D424260-70) which I plan to adapt sometime but it will need some patience. Thank you for your great videos!!!

[@DxDeksor]

The VRAM expansion slots aren't proprietary, it's just a weird packaging for RAM called "ZIP". My HP vectra has the same slots and I managed to find them many years ago. It used 256kx4 chips though while yours uses 256kx16. I checked and they seem to be a lot more expensive :/ Also to dead test old motherboards you should look into making your own BIOS ROM, it's very fun and actually not that hard :D One of my favorite tests is just a program that outputs 0x01 to port 0x80

[@necro_ware]

I have some vram zip modules, but the Pinout seems to be different. I have to investigate it in depth one day.

[@DxDeksor]

@@necro_ware yeah like I said the capacity seems to matter and it looks like the 256Kx4 are much more common than the 256Kx16 (or the 256Kx16 are more sought after)

[@Chris-yc3mm]

Some ibm ps/1 systems also have these for video ram. Also seen them called zigzag modules.

[@GGigabiteM]

@@Chris-yc3mm Yeah, they're Zigzag Inline Package (ZIP). The package type had a brief popularity when memory manufacturers were trying to squeeze more chips into a smaller space than DIP. SIMMs supplanted them rather quickly though. ZIP packaging still maintains a niche in audio amplifier ICs and power ICs like high power voltage regulators or motor drives.

[@pavelfara9333]

Some more advanced VGA cards from the early 90" are using those chips. Sometimes even in combinations with dips. I have a pro VGA ISA accelerator where they have used a "normal" memory for the VGA and those "zip" for the additional ram next to the CAD/CAM accelerator part. Pretty crazy stuff to be honest 😅

[@nicomputerservices2669]

Really incredible work! I'm continually impressed by what you are able to accomplish and watching you has really raised the bar for me on what possible to feasibly repair. I've learned so much by watching your channel and it has greatly improved my own repair skills by using tips and tricks that I have learned from you. Thank you for everything you do for these machines and for the community!

[@georgez8859]

Amazing Work. Thank you for the Video

[@K10driver]

As always a great Work. I think you have reached a new level of repair skill, pushed by the new microskope too. ❤

[@eltrash]

Congratulation, excellent work. It must be a great moment when you realize that all the effort was worth it. I look forward to see the continuation.

[@the1990kman]

This video was actually an inspiration that I needed for fixing my Asus A7V motherboard. I have broken pads on the clock generator and this gives me some hope to try again. Even though now I think I need to buy one of those microscopes for better workflow.

[@peterkornaukhov9990]

Thank you so much. I would say these Packard Bell were - inexpensive, brandnamed (I mean first sophisticatedly constructed), for home appliance. Some Pentium ones had such Aztech combo dialup modem and soundcard plates onboard. That was a bit hard to configurate them. Overall, good hardware.

[@RWFRMoto]

Nice work ! Just watch your dwell times on some of those smaller components.

[@djfaber]

You need to get your hands on a period correct monitor with attached speakers =)

[@JoCrt]

I love the repair videos.

[@TradieTrev]

That retracting looked painful! Glad your purchase of a microscope help her to boot!

[@into-db3oe]

It's incredible! My respect.

[@teg24601]

Fun fact about those CD interfaces, they are actually SCSI, as IDE's cylinder, tracks, and sectors addressing scheme was totally incompatible with the more linear addressing of CDs (and a lot of other media). When EIDE/ATA came into vogue, it adopted most of SCSI's addressing schemes, which is why you later get ATA CD, DVD, and BD drives, and the basis for SATA (which a lot of OS's refer to SCSI internally). The reasons for the different connectors came from how each major controller manufacturer (internally to the drives), wanted to handle the signaling, and even those with the same number of pins will organize their power, signaling, and ground differently. Had they all just worked together at the time, SCSI would have been much wider used when its advantages over IDE were much more obvious.

[@theexile4694]

Can't wait for the next video.

[@HBAVHS]

absolutely great.

[@FurbleFawks]

Absolutely brilliant work there. I had one of these when I was younger and it was amazing to see you fix it. Amazing repair skills. Your videos have also improved massively since a few years ago in production quality too. Superb :)

[@Thomsonicus]

Very very Nice work. Love the editing skill in this video!

[@Telepatok]

Amazing work!

[@xianox8]

Good job! 👍 I have a similar but slightly later Compaq pc, (socket 5). Need a CRT to match it.

[@un2mensch]

For replacing that kind of IC pads I usually use 30AWG and flatten the end with pliers which usually results in them being level with the other pads. It works quite well!

[@bundesautobahn7]

Das sieht immer so geil aus, wenn das Essig mit der Base des Batteriesafts reagiert. Ich liebe dieses sprudeln. Dennoch sind diese NiCad-Batterien der Teufel (und gut, dass die EU sie in den 2000ern verboten hat). Übrigens: Peter von CPU Galaxy ersetzt diese Barrel-Batterien (oder wie sie auf Deutsch heißen, mir fällt der Name nicht ein) mit den selben Formfaktor, aber Lithium-Batterien. Zumindest ist ein Leck dann unwahrscheinlich.

[@necro_ware]

Er verwendet NiMH Batterien. Li-Ion Akkus darf man ohne Modifikation da nicht einbauen, da die überladen und explodieren könnten. Die NiMH sind zwar viel besser, als NiCd Akkus, aber auch die leaken früher oder später. Ich würde es nicht empfehlen. Aber was die chemische Reaktion angeht, ja, ich mag es selber auch, wenn ich sehe, wie es arbeitet :)

[@bundesautobahn7]

@@necro_ware Ich bin von Lithium ausgegangen. Egal, hauptsache, diese Retro-PCs bekommen eine Chance auf ein zweites Leben.

[@koztech]

Awesome work as usual! I have a VERY similar model PB (they seemed to like to use the same chassis/motherboard for various models) and it too suffers from trace damage (though seemingly much more extensive than yours sadly). Still, your videos give me inspiration to at least make an attempt to repair it, albeit very slowly over time. But even if I don't succeed I have a bunch of retro parts I can use in another 486. And good to see a DEC board is a close enough match that I might be able to locate one of those to use in the chassis.

[@--fishiiki-]

Love the repair videos, keep it up! Can't wait for the next parts :D

[@xKynOx]

I like the yellowing, it adds character unless it's a SNES they look awful when they are bright yellow.

[@DanielDeyette]

I have an incredibly similar machine (if not the same) with the exact same type of damage. I really wish the video had shown where some of the damaged pad wires went up close... but, I get the gyst. I've managed to do similar repairs using strategies like yours... although, I've always wondered if there's a way to rebuild a solder pad.. If I had a flat piece of copper... I wonder if any type of glue/adhesive would hold it on the board in the same spot - yet be heat resistant. Either way.... I was really happy to see the ending of this video, gives me hope that with some patience I'll be able to do the exact same thing.

[@pavelfara9333]

Nice job! Kind of sad they used this battery bomb! And even beeing a NiMH it leaked so badly. My experience is that NiCd Vartas are the worst. Those green can make a mess too but rarely as bad as in your case. Maybe it is due to bad storage in some humid environment etc. It is a bad luck becouse those branded machines mostly had external batteries in boxes outside the board. And in vl-bus era even some lithium cells already! Good you managed to save the board! I am using your methods with a great success! Thank you. Thinking about a microscope as well - I think it is opening a completely new realm of possibilities!

[@knightsun2920]

Love to see the video card get its 2 MB upgrade, possibly make your own PCB.

[@perhansson6718]

22:30 that side cutter left a bit of a mark on the trace above it ;)

[@shanemshort]

we had that exact drive with our SB16.. I think it was some kind of Edutament pack, we had to replace it within 12 months of owning it

[@ІгорЧервоняк-д6э]

Гарна робота!

[@JVHShack]

The sockets for the VRAM expansion are of the ZIP (Zig-zag Inline Package) variety. I'm not sure if they are readily available, but with your PCB design skills, I'm certain that you could spin up an adapter of some sort, like using an SOJ-20 package. The pin spacing is 1.27 mm on each side, so finding pins that will go into those sockets should be easy at the very least.

[@mistwolf]

I am pretty sure this was my first childhood pc, with a ram upgrade and Dos, i can't recall if 5 or 6. It was a second hand from my dad circa 1992, my first Intel after having a c64.