SSD disks seem to accelerate motherboard failure on computers

[Monkeh]

There was a very particular range of AMD GPUs in Macbooks which suffered from cracked solder balls. Nobody seems much fussed by the fact that AMD are the ones who put the solder balls on the packages, of course, as Apple are the easy target. It is not a widespread concern of Macbooks.

Christ, I just defended Apple, I must be coming down with something.

[Berni]

Such things can easily happen even to the big guys.

For example Microsoft had one hell of a situation with the early generations of Xbox 360 consoles. They made the console considerably more compact compared to the previous generation, while packing in lots of processing power. As a result it ran pretty hot and the thermal cycling eventually cracked solder balls on a lot of them causing the famous "Red ring of death" error after a year or two of regular use(sometimes even weeks or months). This was not a small percentage of units either, it happened to a lot of them.

It cost them huge amounts of money to replace units under warranty. Microsoft never officially released what caused the issue but sources say that part of the problem was using the wrong lead free solder alloy that was particularly prone to cracking under these hot conditions. Some point at Microsoft sticking there fingers into the graphics ASIC design too much and causing it to run hotter than it should.

Then again there are also plenty of laptops that run very hot but don't have reliability issues. Just that with MacBooks there is a lot of them out there, so its easier to draw some statistics on there reliability.

[Raj]

Such things can easily happen even to the big guys.

For example Microsoft had one hell of a situation with the early generations of Xbox 360 consoles. They made the console considerably more compact compared to the previous generation, while packing in lots of processing power. As a result it ran pretty hot and the thermal cycling eventually cracked solder balls on a lot of them causing the famous "Red ring of death" error after a year or two of regular use(sometimes even weeks or months). This was not a small percentage of units either, it happened to a lot of them.

It cost them huge amounts of money to replace units under warranty. Microsoft never officially released what caused the issue but sources say that part of the problem was using the wrong lead free solder alloy that was particularly prone to cracking under these hot conditions. Some point at Microsoft sticking there fingers into the graphics ASIC design too much and causing it to run hotter than it should.

Then again there are also plenty of laptops that run very hot but don't have reliability issues. Just that with MacBooks there is a lot of them out there, so its easier to draw some statistics on there reliability.

Yeah, bad solder was quite common when RoHs was first implemented. Asus is also known to be using the bad alloy, but only Apple refuse to service and fix arising from it.

[wraper]

Such things can easily happen even to the big guys.

For example Microsoft had one hell of a situation with the early generations of Xbox 360 consoles. They made the console considerably more compact compared to the previous generation, while packing in lots of processing power. As a result it ran pretty hot and the thermal cycling eventually cracked solder balls on a lot of them causing the famous "Red ring of death" error after a year or two of regular use(sometimes even weeks or months). This was not a small percentage of units either, it happened to a lot of them.

It cost them huge amounts of money to replace units under warranty. Microsoft never officially released what caused the issue but sources say that part of the problem was using the wrong lead free solder alloy that was particularly prone to cracking under these hot conditions. Some point at Microsoft sticking there fingers into the graphics ASIC design too much and causing it to run hotter than it should.

Then again there are also plenty of laptops that run very hot but don't have reliability issues. Just that with MacBooks there is a lot of them out there, so its easier to draw some statistics on there reliability.

Yeah, bad solder was quite common when RoHs was first implemented. Asus is also known to be using the bad alloy, but only Apple refuse to service and fix arising from it.

Except it's a myth and had nothing to do with solder balls. Repair by reballing the chips was a scam. What failed were bumps between silicon die and substrate, heating restored the contact for a while, so many people stupidly assumed it was solder. Even though temperature needed to restore the operation was much lower than solder melting point.

[Berni]

Except it's a myth and had nothing to do with solder balls. Repair by reballing the chips was a scam. What failed were bumps between silicon die and substrate, heating restored the contact for a while, so many people stupidly assumed it was solder. Even though temperature needed to restore the operation was much lower than solder melting point.

Yeah this is what gave rise to the Xbox 360 "towel fix". People would wrap the console in a towel to make it get as hot as possible before it shuts itself off. This would actually help, but only for some time before it would die again.

I don't think Microsoft actually attempted to fix the failed boards, they likely just ripped out the old boards, threw a few truckloads of them into a landfill and put in the brand new revision boards that didn't have this problem.

Cracks in the BGA balls do still happen sometimes (Even tho most cases are actually the microballs on the die, as those see more stress). One of the changes on the new revision 360 motherboards was added glue. You often also see under fill glue on BGAs in iPhones and similar products, its not strictly necessary but it seams they found it does provide a meaningful reliability improvement (mechanical and keeping dirt out) to be worth it.

[xani]

Maybe it's just users doing actual work instead of waiting for HDD cause higher CPU/thermal load ?

Or maybe users are angry you didn't give them new machine and are mistreating them 

[tooki]

My guess is that, given that those are exactly the models affected by some GPU solder (or bumps) failures, that the forces involved during SSD installation (such as when removing and inserting connectors) flex the board just enough for further weaken the already iffy solder joints/bumps, such that subsequent thermal cycling causes them to fail.

Again, this is easily tested: do the same process as for installing the SSD, but reinstall the original parts. That would conclusively reveal whether it’s the part or the installation process that’s causing the subsequent failures.

[Raj]

I guess, if this thing was really true, there's no way that Louis Rossman wouldn't have encountered it.

[wraper]

I guess, if this thing was really true, there's no way that Louis Rossman wouldn't have encountered it.

Louis Rossman clearly said:

[tooki]

Yeah, bad solder was quite common when RoHs was first implemented.

People say that, but I don’t think it actually happened. Heck, in some aspects, lead-free solder has superior characteristics, so it’s possible that those have actually negated the negative aspects in real-world products.

Look at https://www.fujitsu.com/global/documents/about/resources/publications/fstj/archives/vol38-1/paper14.pdf

[Raj]

This particularly affects iMacs which are between 2010-2012.

We will not take on any systems below 2010.

The Windows systems would be typically  7-8 years. These are branded systems like HP.

SSD brands we would use would be WD Blue and SanDisk. BTW, just to re-emphasize the SSDs would be fine.

We often do not have time to pinpoint exact failure of motherboard.

And thanks kripton for bringing up the issue of iMac 2011 - yes, this graphics chips on these seem to be a big problem.

2010 imac?
I though that original post was about laptops. Now that I know it's desktop, I'm even more sure that the problem is mechanical.
Those things had huge 3.5 inch drives.
Replacing them with tiny SSD would need a mount. Maybe the Mount the you're using is bigger than what it's supposed to be and putting mechanical stresses all over the place

[tooki]

That doesn’t make any sense, since SSDs are smaller than HDDs, and the adapters necessarily have to fit inside the same dimensions as an HDD.

[Raj]

usually adapters are made to fit inside a metal drive cage in the front portion of chassis that can flex so the adapter being a bit bigger might not be a problem.


But whatever...We all can go on forever, guessing what the cause could be... nothing can be said without looking at the damaged computer itself

[mikerj]

 a quality obsessed company like Apple

A perceived quality obsessed company.  Their products have to look high quality on the outside, the actual engineering on the inside has been shown to be pretty crap in a number of cases.

[Raj]

 a quality obsessed company like Apple

A perceived quality obsessed company.  Their products have to look high quality on the outside, the actual engineering on the inside has been shown to be pretty crap in a number of cases.

Unless you see them as engineered to fall. Same goes for Asus, which is a trap company for enthusiasts.
Asus puts their fans in laptop in such a way, that you'd have to remove cpu-gpu combo heatsink to get them out. Big problem when you're the service tech cleaning them

HP is even worse with their fans sucking air from the gaps between keyboard keys along with user's sweat.

[tooki]

 a quality obsessed company like Apple

A perceived quality obsessed company.  Their products have to look high quality on the outside, the actual engineering on the inside has been shown to be pretty crap in a number of cases.

That’s really quite an exaggeration. There are a few exceptions, but they’re a tiny, tiny minority.

[tooki]

Unless you see them as engineered to fall.

Except that reliability stats show them to be exceptionally good, above average for the industry.

[niconiconi]

Speaking of HDD replacement, Mac and thermal issues, it reminds me of something: some iMac (2011) use proprietary HDDs with customized firmware that repurposed SATA pin #11 (activity indicator signal) as a temperature sensing PWM signal, this is used by the logic board embedded controller for thermal management. Replacing the HDD with another HDD or SSD will cause erratic thermal behavior:  the logic board finds the invalid temp. and enters fallback - maximal fan speed  But this can't be the cause of OP's issue here as it increases cooling, not decreases it, but unusual enough (perhaps not for Apple) to have a mention.

The workaround was simply enough... pin #11 is open-drain, so bridge it to pin #12, ground, so the controller reads a 0 but not invalid, and you're done, but at your own risk: although an SSD is unlikely to overheat (and even then, has its own throttling), it's unknown whether the controller uses the HDD temperature together with other temperature to make a decision and whether bypassing the HDD temp. sensing makes the fan management less responsive. For those particularly care about the problem, iFixit sells an upgrade kit that recreates this signal by a microcontroller.

[Raj]

Speaking of HDD replacement, Mac and thermal issues, it reminds me of something: some iMac (2011) use proprietary HDDs with customized firmware that repurposed SATA pin #11 (activity indicator signal) as a temperature sensing PWM signal, this is used by the logic board embedded controller for thermal management. Replacing the HDD with another HDD or SSD will cause erratic thermal behavior:  the logic board finds the invalid temp. and enters fallback - maximal fan speed  But this can't be the cause of OP's issue here as it increases cooling, not decreases it, but unusual enough (perhaps not for Apple) to have a mention.

The workaround was simply enough... pin #11 is open-drain, so bridge it to pin #12, ground, so the controller reads a 0 but not invalid, and you're done, but at your own risk: although an SSD is unlikely to overheat (and even then, has its own throttling), it's unknown whether the controller uses the HDD temperature together with other temperature to make a decision and whether bypassing the HDD temp. sensing makes the fan management less responsive. For those particularly care about the problem, iFixit sells an upgrade kit that recreates this signal by a microcontroller.

Can turn the thing into a vacuum cleaner, blocking all the heatsinks with dusts. thus counterintuitively, leading to overheat failure.
As far as I know, that thing is impossible to clean for a normie.

[nightfire]

To share some own experience: I also upgraded lots of PCs (mainly at work) from HDD to SSD to get some more life out of them, and this usually went well.
In my experience (from about 25 years of building and repairing PCs) PCs can fail after some period of no or minimum use due to several reasons.
Those include dust and dirt buildup that causes heat issues and/or attracts humidity with leakage currents, failing powersupplies that run unstable, and especially in systems that ran 24/7 for some time, minor cracks in the PCB itself or dry electrolytic caps. After getting cold, on power-on there would be some issues...

But this should not amount to about 30% failure rate.

Some good ideas when upgrading those old systems:
- Clean for dust and dirt with compressed air
- put new thermal paste between CPU and heatsink
- check all fans for smooth operation
- check all internal cables for tight fit- sometimes it is worth unplugging and replugging them a few times to get rid of some corrosion/oxidation
- same goes sometimes for RAM modules- in earlier times where not all contacts were gold plated, the SIMM or PS/2 modules were cleaned with a eraser/rubber- blue side, if needed...


Other story: A year ago, I built myself a new PC from scratch and left my old box in the corner (minus the HDD/SSDs). Two weeks ago I wanted to repurpose that machine as a Unix workstation for some fun stuff related to photography. So took out that system, cleaned it a bit, hooked the original SSD (120 GB Samsung before they were called EVO...) and tried to power on. Nothing. Some beeps pointed to memory issues.
Did the whole stuff of swapping out memory, removing everything that would not be needed for initial powerup- nada.
Put in a CPU from another system with the same socket 1155, and on it went like a charm.
Conclusion: In about the roughly 10 months the system stood aside something happened with the CPU- a genuine Xean 1230 v3 that worked about 7 years or so without a problem...
Mainboard was/is Gigabyte, one of the first models of  their "Ultra Durable Series" with a H77 chipset- solid stuff, this combo worked long hours without any hiccups...

[Monkeh]

Put in a CPU from another system with the same socket 1155, and on it went like a charm.
Conclusion: In about the roughly 10 months the system stood aside something happened with the CPU- a genuine Xean 1230 v3 that worked about 7 years or so without a problem...

Did you try putting the original CPU back in? Even LGA suffers from bad contacts. ISA, PCI, PCIe, SIMM slots, DIMM slots.. every single low pressure gold-plated contact in a PC I've had problems with.

[nightfire]

Yes. Old CPU now does not even gets warm, System Fan is also not running- exchange CPU in, system happily gets going, CPU heats up, fan is spinning, happy single beep after a few seconds.

[tautech]

Yes. Old CPU now does not even gets warm, System Fan is also not running- exchange CPU in, system happily gets going, CPU heats up, fan is spinning, happy single beep after a few seconds.

Your 'Other story' exactly describes a build I did a few years back and also parked for a few months only to also be greeted with with a system that wouldn't fire up ! 
Then not being able to get the same mainboard but a lesser spec and now older CPU socket version the build was recovered using the older but still new CPU and its run fine for some years now. 

The dud board was a ASUS B85M-G but was already out of warranty when we had these issues. 

[G7PSK]

Yeah, bad solder was quite common when RoHs was first implemented.

People say that, but I don’t think it actually happened. Heck, in some aspects, lead-free solder has superior characteristics, so it’s possible that those have actually negated the negative aspects in real-world products.

Look at https://www.fujitsu.com/global/documents/about/resources/publications/fstj/archives/vol38-1/paper14.pdf

Tin wiskers was a real problem when lead free first started. Does not take much to short out a chip in many cases, reflowing most likely melted a wisker long before the rest of the solder. Some people recomended uping the voltage to blow the wiskers away.

[Raj]

Yeah, bad solder was quite common when RoHs was first implemented.

People say that, but I don’t think it actually happened. Heck, in some aspects, lead-free solder has superior characteristics, so it’s possible that those have actually negated the negative aspects in real-world products.

Look at https://www.fujitsu.com/global/documents/about/resources/publications/fstj/archives/vol38-1/paper14.pdf

Tin wiskers was a real problem when lead free first started. Does not take much to short out a chip in many cases, reflowing most likely melted a wisker long before the rest of the solder. Some people recomended uping the voltage to blow the wiskers away.

won't reflowing the wiskers, introduce oxides into the joint?