I'm in Britain so it seems I'll not be getting any more updates for an older Acer laptop which will not upgrade to Win11 - not that I want it to, I currently have it as a duel boot with two separate 1TB drives, Win10 and Linux Mint. I only ever use the Win10 for Minecraft Bedrock and or ImageView microscope software. At the end of the day the Acer may become just useable for the ImageView so as to dedicate it completely to my microscopy projects. To be honest, I'm afraid to connect the Windows 10 to the internet in case Microsoft cause it to stop booting all together. I mean at one point, on my Lenovo, I was forced to update my Linux Mint to a newer version, because Windows/Microsoft was able to modify the bios somehow, preventing the old Linux to boot. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if there was a way around that issue, but the experience makes me wonder just how far Microsoft will go to destroy the ability of my old Acer from working at all!!!
micronicle
joined 1 month ago
My experience with PC motherboards in regard to your question is to only use a soldering iron where a hot air gun is just not practical. The power surface mount FETs that are numerous and have large thermally efficient track/pads are the most difficult component to remove without damaging the PCB. Hot air and kaptan tape to protect close by components is essential. I have repaired hundreds of PC system boards. Where possible cut the component body off of the component legs before attempting to remove the through hole pins. Electrolytic capacitors will readily pull off of their legs by leaning them sideways for leverage then pulling to remove the can completely, meaning only the plated through hole need be heated with hot air, and rather than use a desolder tool or solder sucker as we call them which can easily damage tracking, using a very narrow nozzle on the hot air rework gun to melt the solder holding the pin in place while gently extracting the pin with snipe nose pliers and then keeping the solder in the plated through hole hot, blow air through the hole with a quick dab of the nozzle, perpendicular to the PCB will result in a good clean plated through hole with the least amount of damage possible.