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Bright Ideas: Cold Solder joints on a Mac? Fan a solution?



Author: Lewis Bright
Date: September 1987
Keywords: cooling cold hints tips power supply
Text: Two chilling articles, one in the Corvallis Mac newsletter and the other in a Hawaii Mac newsletter, both written by folks involved in the job of Macintosh repairs, have reported that Macs over two years old frequently suffer from what were apparently cold solder joints where major connectors were attached to the power board. The results have been bombs on the screen and eventually, smoking Macs, which burned up their power boards. At first the problem seemed to be with the soldering, but the Hawaii repairman now feels that the cause is heating and cooling of key joints which changes the solder to a chrystalline form and gives the appearance of a "cold" joint. He argues that any Mac over two years old should be thoroughly inspected and have the joints, if affected, resoldered and he recommends a fan which evens out the temperature on the joints and prevents them from going bad. We'll make a couple of copies of the articles for distribution at the next meeting for anyone concerned.

Copyright © September 1987 by Lewis Bright


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