Im new here and saying hello!

[Xolares]

Hi all! I hope i have fun and learn mroe with everyone! I am an Autistic guy (35) in Albany WA Australia and starting to get my gear to do work (Old Iron, Old Desoldder station and a bulky heat gun  ) All i need to buy now is Multimeter, Ociliscope and i bet ill need more down the road. I spendd alot of time fixing old PCs, C64s, Amigas, Macs, Consoles, Motherboards and hope to learn how to reball old parts like GPUs and CPUs. Its a hobby since i cant work and need to keep myself going.
I have collected old new stock of parts from 1980s from Sram, ROms, Motherboards, Keyboards, Cache chips and stuff from C64/128/500+/2K/4K like SIDs, RAM, CPU, Z80s,CIAs, Paulas and the like.

Forgive my spelling and gramamar since its not one of my strong points.

[andy3055]

Welcome to the forum. Hope you will learn and also impart your knowledge here!

Main thing is to have fun.

[Xolares]

My first repair to try out my skills will be an old AM2 motherboard with blown caps (Blown off the board) I think was due to the higher watt load from CPU (AM3) So ill install higher rated and check voltage. I have afew dead laptop boards i can practice SMD Soldering. Should i stick with lead free?

[james_s]

How old is the motherboard? I saw a LOT of motherboards from the early-mid 2000's that had faulty capacitors, there's a bunch of history on that fiasco that you can read up on if you want.

Personally I hate lead-free solder, it requires more heat and doesn't flow as well as the old fashioned tin-lead stuff. Motherboards are multilayer boards with thick copper pours so you need a LOT of heat. When I was replacing motherboard capacitors I'd often use two soldering irons, sometimes even one of those old fashioned 140W soldering guns to get the old capacitors out. These days I'd probably preheat the whole board to around 100C and then use a soldering iron with a relatively heavy tip.

[Xolares]

Its from the AthlonX2 generation the Gigabyte GA-M56S-S3 REV1.0 and uses KZG caps LMAO. might be best to replace all of them. Its for a Retro Windows XP build with GF 7800GTX cards

[Xolares]

depends on the board but i normally preheat.

[GlennSprigg]

Hi there Xolares.  I'm in W.A. too, and my favorite Nephew here, (Bunbury), is Autistic too. I mention that, only because your need to explain that, shows me what a genuine person you are! And he is a very bright lad. (But knows when I'm mucking around!!).

On this forum, (and most others), there are everyone from beginners to science/maths/electronic experts, and the vast majority are very friendly, although some 'answers' may seem a bit cold at times. Do not let this bias your inputs. Your input here is as important as anyone elses.
We do not know your monetary limitations, but there are MANY cheap Digital Multimeters that are well suited for such low voltage diagnosis and repair work, and you do not need to spend many HUNDREDS just for a 'name'.  There are many cheap Oscilloscopes advertised on the likes of 'eBay' or 'Gumtree'. (Around $80 to $100??). Granted, these are low end m/c's limited to say 10-mhz to 20-mhz, but are perfectly suited to what you are trying to do, at your level. I know what it's like to 'start-out', and wish you every success !!   

[Xolares]

I am now waiting for eevblog mulimeter in the nest 3 days and my 100+ ifixit set to fix around 30 ms surface 3s, 3pros and 4pros. Will use on fixing macbooks and consoles and pcs.