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Comment by dpark | Hacker News Reader

If you had to do it 7 times, that doesn’t really sound like it “worked”.

Well, it took a non-working laptop - video glitched and unusable, to one that was working for 3 months. Was it a permanent fix? No. But, it sure beat buying a new laptop on short notice.

Sounds like my home theater amplifier (Pioneer VSX-921). The audio DSP chip gets too hot during normal use and desolders itself ever so slightly, which gives the error UE22. Someone figured out that taking a hot air gun to the chip fixes it, but I had to re-apply the fix about every three months.

What angered me even more was that Pioneer USA acknowledged the problem and would either repair or give you a replacement model, but Pioneer EU pretends everything is fine and dandy, even when you point them to Pioneer USA its stance.

Would a fan help?

No idea, I gave it away for free to a solder-handy guy who was unemployed and needed something to drive a 5.1 set he was gifted from someone else. I did try a heatsink, but that didn't help noticeably.

There's nothing that the folks who are willing to pay for home theater audio gear love more than adding an acoustical noise source.

Usually it's not the chips actually desoldering so much as it is thermal cycling causing the solder joints to crack. Most ICs can't really survive being heated to solder melt temperature for an extended period.

Either way, it's pretty bad that they didn't do something about it. That's indicative of a pretty serious manufacturing or design flaw.

It sounds like it did work, the problem is faulty solder.

There's likely nothing wrong with the solder, but with the lack of flux.

Its Monday, I think there is a widespread lack of flux today.

this man speaks a good point

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