Repairing an AMD Slot-A Motherboard with the Tomlov DM501 Pro Digital Microscope

[@necro_ware]

Oh! Finally one of those heard our begging for a table arm. I also got a microscope for review last year and I made a custom holder for this. The standard base is not suited for mainborad repairs. The clamp which they provide is still quite sketchy. Why does it have to be one thing which spoil everything. I mean, it's not just a small inconvenience.

[@WelshProgrammer]

You two are saving history! one motherboard at a time

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for watching! Yes, it’s always something unfortunately. The clamp appears to be a standard tablet clamp that they reused for this product. Definitely not ideal. I think I’m going to wall mount the arm somehow to stabilize it better.

[@livefreeprintguns]

I'm still low-key obsessed with the Slot 1/Slot A platform... such a golden era for me.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Awww yeah. Phil, Retrospector and Vswitchzero all in the same night. I am SPOILED!

[@mtunayucer]

Damn yes! its like solar system planets aligning lmao.

[@rogiervanl]

It's a good day today👍

[@vswitchzero]

Haha thanks so much :D

[@Zerbey]

Welcome back! Since that's a standard ball joint you can just retrofit a better clamp to it if you wish. I had a similar issue with my car's CarPlay tablet and just went on Amazon and bought one of those third party magnetic mounts that attached right to the OEM bracket that came with it. Solid as a rock now.

[@jamesrdgrs]

Welcome back, another great video and I see a new microscope in my future.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks so much!

[@tiemanowo]

7:28 Image clarity after polarizer on is like a day and night difference. Now i must tweek my next budget for repair tools because of you :). Nice video as always.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks so much, Tieman! :)

[@the_game]

⚠ Ordered the DM501PRO 5 minutes ago. It looks amazing, can't wait to test it out. :) Got a rock solid desk anchored firmly to a concrete wall ready and waiting. ;) Thank you so much for this "info mercial" ! 👍

[@Phantomwiz1985]

Was starting to get worried. It’s been a hot minute since my last retro fix from one of my favourite KZbinrs. Glad to see things are going well. Look forward to the next one. Thanks vswitch

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks very much :) Life always seems to get in the way. I'm hoping I'll be able to start releasing content a bit more regularly in the next month or two.

[@VShuricK]

11:19 looks like an overheated iron tip... For classic Sn61Pb39 working temp is around 250C 12:30 just use 0.1-0.15mm emaled wire.

[@blakecasimir]

Nice job. That new scope is a huge improvement. You might like to get a powered "pencil" engraving tool for removing solder mask.Your video editing seems tighter, also. 👍

[@Constantin314]

yes, Mike! finally! i really was beginning to think that you've quit YT! mega repair, Mr. Sherlock :)

[@vswitchzero]

Haha thanks! Yeah life, work and everything in between has got in the way the last few months. Hoping that I'll have more time to work on videos again soon :)

[@awilliams1701]

I watch HDD Repair Services whenever he makes a video. He does a TON of bodges. It's all enamel coated. It doesn't come off unless you rub the wire with the iron under a pool of flux. He uses different sizes. The craziest repair I've ever seen him do was on an micro SD card. He did like 20 traces in a spot no bigger than a droplet of water. I can't begin to fathom how small those wires were. Then in the less critical area he used thicker wires that were still tiny, but like 5x bigger. Maybe about the size of a hair? I can't comprehend how he was able to fix that card and download the data.

[@KaldekBoch]

I still have a roll of enameled wire I used for modding the original Xbox. Great stuff for exactly this purpose.

[@DominatorHDX]

Use Teflon (PTFE) isolated wire. It won't melt/creep back or just a tiny fraction when soldering 😉

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for the tip! 👍

[@s3vR3x]

love your channel, man. love the clear explanations

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks very much! :-)

[@bartceleron4092]

I have the DM202 MAX from Tomlov, and it is very good too.

[@f.k.b.16]

Awesome all around! I saw on another channel where they used a prepen fiberglass adjustable sanding pin to make quick work of removing the of the solder mask. Seems to be the best option I've seen so far.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks very much and thanks for the tip!Will definitely look into this 👍

[@BigBadBench]

Always great to see you post a video! Love the range of motion with that scope. And having the polarizing filter is another great feature. This is also way cheaper than my scope setup. Very tempting!

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks so much! :)

[@SudosFTW]

with those boards and anything from the 98-01 era with sanyo oscon caps, everything should just be replaced altogether. good to note here that the single sanyo oscon is in fact a hybrid polymer meant for high frequency switching loads. Replacing everything in that section with polys however would be wise going forward.

[@AladimBR]

I have a Soyo Slot 1 Intel 440BX that posts sometimes - I tried different cpus and video cards, it worked twice for a short time. It would post and load DOS, but next restart it would be gone. No visual damage, recaped the entire board with high quality japanese caps, no change. Tried flashing new bios, including new bios chip, no change. It is a nice looking board and rich featured, like you I put aside for a to be repaired in the future. Checked found no shorts, it might be a cold joint somewhere… or needs replacing some IC or a reball for the chipset.

[@Ironclad17]

Now that you've upgraded your optics, your tip looks massive for this kind of work.

[@Guitargreat]

So I bought it and I love it! I was looking at the northridge fix camera it was 700 dollars but this one works just as good and I don’t need an external monitor but if I choose to use one I can! Thanks for making my mind up!

[@vswitchzero]

Awesome! Glad you like the scope. Makes a huge difference when doing repairs 👍

[@BrassicGamer]

I definitely need a microscope but I'm definitely going to wait until I can get one like this - I enjoyed your videos of previous repairs but the restrictions definitely encouraged me to hold off. Nice simple (well, relatively) repair to test this one out! I've got a similar non-working board, the 7IX, so I should look at that at some point.

[@nalinux]

The polarizer seems to be a nice option. I wonder if I can adapt one on my cheap microscope.

[@MeneGR]

I'm not sure but those traces seem like differential pairs and at first that made me worry that it wouldn't work if they aren't repaired exactly to size. I also liked the purple, it complimented the gold!

[@Ale.K7]

Great video!

[@heckintech]

Oh damn, DEFINITELY need to get me one of these! 😍

[@sireduard1986]

solo como sugerencia, el alambre de bobinado de 0.25 es mas facil de manipular y tambien viene aislado

[@Splarkszter]

Wooooohoo! Another amazing video :D

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks so much :-)

[@SobieRobie]

Every Slot A motherboard matters! We have special cult around Slot A here in Poland ;) I think a better way to repair the traces was to fill the gap with some epoxy and make small bridges with enamel wires or just plain copper wires. But of course - your circus, your monkeys ;)

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks SobieRobie! Yes, slot-a is definitely a special one that’s for sure! I thought about doing something similar but the last time I tried to solder to tiny traces like this it ended badly 😂. I think I’m going to try to get some practice on a junk board to get better at it. Thanks for watching!

[@all_the_moga]

Nice job!

[@rodhester2166]

curious. could you clamp the screen at the bottom, rather than the top of the screen? probably a silly question.

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for your comment! Unfortunately, there is a rectangular bulge (assuming for the batteries) that prevents the clamp from attaching to the bottom half.

[@lynnlovelace431]

Kz, Teflon or PTFE wire

[@stevencamp6824]

Pricing on slot a boards has went crazy

[@nismo1082]

Get a fiberglass pen, this makes it much easier to remove the paint. Best regards

[@simontay4851]

But they leave lots of little fibers, which get stuck in your fingers.

[@NamesGolden]

Dibs on the old scope!

[@Guitargreat]

Thanks I’m going to buy it now

[@Cooper3312000]

Can anyone help trying to fix the memory on a ATi Rage Fury Maxx but unable to find dram from Hyundai HY57V653220B TC-7 have one know bad but might replace all. Anyone know of compatible memory?

[@Rafael-fw1xk]

I'll be happy to buy your old microscope

[@vswitchzero]

Thanks for the offer! I actually donated the old scope to another content creator who's been struggling with magnifying glasses for some time. Happy that it'll continue to get some good use.

[@mikes989]

bro, can you do the experiment of a Pentium in a 386 board and do live tests?

[@vswitchzero]

I do have a hybrid 386/486 board that *might* be able to take a Pentium overdrive. Would be really neat to see if it works!

[@mikes989]

@@vswitchzero I read in theretroweb and vogons about it. in the retroweb the did it with a normal pentium, but their own interposers for voltage regulation and signal routing. would be interesting to use the best possible S7 processor. and even more, in the oldest possible 386 board, hahahaa

[@mikes989]

@@vswitchzero even better. Just today I was reading the oral history of the Intel 386, told by its creators. If I understood correctly, the first 386 could be put in a 286 socket? I'll have to check the pinout on the sockets. If it were true it would be incredible to put a pentium on a 286 motherboard 🙂 also the test of Pentium in 386 was in a pure 386 board, I believe

[@Thelemorf]

Id like to have a microscope, at the age of 44 the eyes are not what they used to be, but dont have the time to actually use all my nice solderinge equipment at the moment so a microscope will have to wait..

[@vswitchzero]

I know the feeling! Would never be able to attempt half of these repairs without some magnification. It’s definitely a good investment 👍

[@TheQwik512]

Old headphone wire might work better.

[@csabasanta5696]

A tip on how to solder these wires and not melt the insulation: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZKWlXRqp52lrsU

[@BrainSlugs83]

An unbranded SD card like that is a pretty sketchy red flag. Definitely do a fake flash test. It might report that it has 64 gb of capacity, but that doesn't mean it really does.