Is there anyone in here that can offer advice on some laptop motherboard soldering?

Well I'll just explain the situation. I scored a laptop from this girl that seemed to just need a screen. The model is a Toshiba L505D-GS6000. It seemed to be a perfect laptop to refurbish and flip since I got it for $30. Well I was wrong. The screen was the worst 16" CCFL which was $80, needed a keyboard $22, optical drive $14, ram upgrade to 4GB $40, battery & charger because both were junk $40. So currently I have almost $200 in parts into this POS. After everything I get it together and whenever I install Windows 7 the audio and USB ports don't work. After spending two days researching the problem I found out it's because of a motherboard problem.

On the motherboard right below the trackpad there are two small pieces, I don't know if they are filters or what for the circuits but on my motherboard they are missing. In the picture I am showing they are both there still. The L4519 and the smaller one next to it are gone and I need to either just bridge the gap or take ones off donor boards (I have a bunch of laptop motherboards laying around from parts laptops I've bought). The larger of the two is about 1 1/2 mm big. I have no idea how to get one off another motherboard without just breaking it off. I don't have a soldering iron with a microscopic tip. Here is a quote from the Toshiba forum where I found out how to fix this extremely common problem with this L505D model:

"What I usually find, is that L4519 has either broken loose or is completely missing. And the best reason I can figure, is that part of the touchpad components/plastics come into contact with L4519 and break it loose or knock it off the board. Of course it doesn't do it all by itself. It takes an outside downward force/pressure applied to the palmrest to cause this problem. I've repaired probably at least 60 of these motherboards and it's the problem every time"

So after looking, yeah mine are gone. I added a picture they had posted in the Toshiba forum of a close up of what the L4519 looks like when it's still there along with the micro one next to it both as you can see have a broken lead. Again, mine are gone and I didn't find them inside the laptop. Can someone please help me or float me some advice on how to go about doing this because I don't want to ruin the motherboard and have to put more $ into this. Well I apologize, The link to the page where they have the picture posted I wanted you to see is in case it doesn't show up in herek http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/Audio-Sound/no-sound-usb-o...

Many thanks in advance for any help. I have a soldering iron, solder, and no clean flux I use when I do a reflow. I took one of my soldering irons tips and filed it down so it's very sharp and small.

 

lol.... Thanks for your post, but I think the girl 'scored' instead of you.

Hope you get any info you need to get this going; but my advice? Cut your losses and call it a day.

Any Toshiba notebook I've worked on (for clients); I've recommended it be replaced (sooner, rather than later).


Good luck!

 

Any broken SMT parts isn't worth fixing save your components for a better system to use.

 

Not an option, just need to know if I can solder in a wire from pad to pad where the resistor was or will it cause something to mess up? Other people in the forum said they did that and it worked and kept working for a long time. I already took $200 towards the sale of $350 on this laptop via the 120GB SSHD I also have for it. So I have to figure this out. Just don't know where I could take it where there would be someone with great soldering skills. There's a place called batties to go or something around here where I seen a guy who had a station set up to change out batteries in I PODs and I Phone 5's cuz they are soldered in. Wonder if I can get him to do it. Just not sure what kind of resistor etc. ya know

 

Hmmm I see, really wish I could help (or someone else shows up soon that can).

Have you tried searching for the notebook's repair/wiring/component manual/schematic/white paper by model or board number?

Hope you get this working.

 

Some components should not be relocated. As the digger suggests, try finding the service manual for the notebook. 'L' components are usually inductors, not resistors.

If your stuck with crude tools such as a fine tipped soldering iron then some low temp solder would help with component removal. Clean the pads up and use a small dot of high temp glue to hold the SMD in place before soldering it in.

Some flux paste may help.

 

thanks for your reply. I am very good at repairing electronics and have fixed hundreds of laptops. I have a nice soldering iron, flux, solder, and all
that stuff. I have just never got into repairing circuits on motherboards and am in a really bad spot. I filed one of my soldering tips to about half a MM in width and to a sharp point. I read a bunch of people who knew about this repair because its so common that were in the same place with no resistor or capacitor left on the board. They all were saying the bridged the two gaps with a blob of solder and they got there USB and sound back upon putting it back together. A couple techs wrote that they are just filters or something and that the power just needs to be able to flow so I'm gonna try that. I cannot find a schematic or diagram anywhere online for this motherboard. Nobody on 6 forums can find it. Ill let ya know how the soldering goes. I was thinking about using my reflow tools I use on GPU's that are loose, taking caps from another board that look similar, placing everything in place after laying down no clean flux, then heating everything up and waiting for it to puddle. I feel more comfortable knowing I won't do harm to the board that way ya know. Just put a penny near it on some foil with a piece of the same solder and wait for the melt so I know its solid.

 

Pull the copper out of some high gauge solid core wire, cut it to length and then while holding it down, solder one end at a time. From what you have said about your skills it should be a super easy fix for you and it sounds like bridging the pads works fine. I have soldered plenty of SMD components with a ty $50 1mm tip soldering iron and it's really very easy if you can hold it in place with something. Use tin/lead solder if you are worried about high temps but it shouldn't be a problem...

 

That is pretty much what I ended up doing and it worked like a champ! Thanks for replaying, much appreciated. And people were telling me I was screwed, your better off getting a new board, blah blah blah.... That's how I got into this stuff, not wasting money and fixing it myself. If I wouldn't have figured it out your reply would have worked perfect so again I thank you. It's nice to get a reply that's actually helpful. Well what I ended up doing altogether was filing down one of my soldering irons tips until it was as close to a needle as I could get it w/o breaking it. Took a small piece of heavier twisted gauge copper wire, warmed up the pads on the one and connected the ends. On the smaller chip that was also missing next to it I just put a small dab of solder. It was way to small to try and bridge two wires. I ended up ordering one of those handy soldering jigs with all the clips and vices plus a new nice soldering gun. It was time to stop messing around with the Kmart specials. Having a bunch of no clean flux, solder, I went with a kit that came with a bunch of stuff. But yeah the sound and USB work like a charm. I took one of those foam pads from the bottom bay of another laptop, drilled out a small hole for the two places I fixed to have a gap and then just put some torado proof double sided tape on it. Now the keyboard doesn't bump into it anymore. Worked out pretty good.

 

You can do a quick DIY soldering tip using any copper wire - cut it to length, file one end down to a needle-like tip and wrap the rest of the wire around the original soldering iron. Takes 15 minutes, works every time and you can solder small SMDs with any iron. Don't forget to wet the tip first.

Here's a variation of this diy tip that screws into a micro torch: imgur: the simple image sharer. Zombie apocalypse ready

 

Good luck. Dealing with those super tiny components are a major pita. I was doing a mod once, sneezed and lost the resistor that was in my tweezers. It was probably less than 1mm in size, and couldn't find it. Thankfully the laptop still worked, just wasn't able to OC it.

 

Thats a great idea, thanks for letting me know that. It would have probably worked much easier. I ended up getting it to work, I wrote about it above. But thank you very much for the help, it's nice to actually get some helpful answers instead of "your screwed, the only thing you can do is buy a new motherboard." Nahhhh, I'd rather fix it myself like I did and collect the $350 on the laptop.... Again appreciate the info, I'm gonna use that trick if I ever get into this spot again. I ended up ordering a nice soldering and hot air kit reballing station. I've needed it for a couple years and after I got paid for that laptop I finally said screw it and ordered it. Now I gotta learn all about reballing etc.

 

Well it's just opinions and everyone is entitled to those. For some it might be a good excuse to get a new machine Good to hear you have it fixed.

Nice, I have wanted one of those for a while but since I don't do computer repairs for a living, just a bit of modding for myself, I cannot justify the cost.

 

Yeah I understand what your saying about opinions but when you come to a forum and you need help it just gets annoying when I get an email thinking someone left a message getting my hopes up that there is an answer but when I look it's just someone offering an opinion. I don't really do computer repairs for a living, it's just evolved into that after not being able to find a job! LOL! I started replacing screens, keyboards, and other stuff I knew I could easily fix for extra money. Next thing I know I'm doing re-flow's using a heat gun and once I got a method to where the re-flow's would last at least 6 months I got more confident at doing them. Plus the method I use fixed a dozen PS3 fat models that also have the solder lifting problem and has worked great with the red ring of dead on XBOX 360's! I've actually been able to pay my $900 in monthly bills and still have enough money to "live" on. I went to that vista.com and they had a special where you could get 500 business cards for $10 and made a 1,000 business cards which I handed out. Plus after doing a few hundred repairs and word getting around it's remained steady for the most part. Sometimes though it can be really slow. That's why when I run into a problem I have no experience with and people are so helpful on forums I appreciate it so much. So buying the hot air soldering kit I found on eBay which was used for $40 was def worth the money.

 

Heh, I love DIY and modding things myself, even if the gains are minimal. It's good experience and just fun sometimes.

The soldering station will definitely come in handy - I got a Bernzomatic mini torch that's small and sort of does the job (not that I solder much, maybe a cable once a month), works on butane/propane.