Hi All, You have to use a hot air soldering station for this kind of work. While it's possible to use the old school method of heating up a massive chunk of copper with a propane torch then touching the board with it, there's no temperature control with that.
A soldering iron tip even the most modern rework irons do not have enough mass, the moment it touches the board the heat is wicked away. Fortunately these are cheap nowadays. But as with all soldering/desoldering, skill and practice is required. Fortunately there's no shortage of scrap electronics out there to practice on. Ted -----Original Message----- From: PLUG <[email protected]> On Behalf Of briand--- via PLUG Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2026 8:05 AM To: Erik Lane <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected]; Portland Linux/Unix Group <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PLUG] modifying repairing GPU PCB Hi, The most common cause of that problem is that the pins are soldered to a large chunk of ground plane and unless you use a really large tip, or preferably an air pencil to heat the entire thing uniformly, you can't get it to stay melted. As soon as you remove heat the solder freezes. The problem is that to get it hot enough and stay hot enough, you'll probably end up melting the connector. Source: I have melted connectors because of this very problem. lol. The good news is that connectors are (usually) cheap. A typical board , even lead free, should not be a problem for the Hakko. Brian p.s. through hole or surface mount connector ? On Fri, 15 May 2026 23:25:59 -0700 Erik Lane <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't know what solder it uses, but it doesn't matter. You ADD some > more of the lower temp solder, so that the mix becomes low temp melt, > and then do your soldering work. You can buy some REALLY low temp > solder and use that for the removal. (Chip Quik has one, but there are > others also.) Then clean things well from the low temp stuff and use > regular solder to put things back on. > > Unless your soldering iron is simply not working up to snuff and even > with this trick won't get warm enough, and then?? I haven't yet met a > solder that the Hakko won't melt. > > On Fri, May 15, 2026 at 4:01 PM King Beowulf > <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > Hello PLUGgers, > > > > Not really a Linux/Unix question, but since some of you have > > experience in the electronics biz, maybe you have some ideas. > > > > I have a GPU with a blower style heat sink and fan (single fan, Cu > > block) > > > > Zotac Gaming Geforce RTX 3090 > > > > Since the blower is a bit loud (it was a data center GPU once upon a > > time), after some research I found the "desktop" version of the fan > > / heat sink - a standard Al heat pipe with 3 fans, as is used for > > most gaming GPU. This heat sing/triple fan does fit, but I need to > > make a slight modification. > > > > Blower type cards typically have the 2 power connectors on the end > > of the PCB J5010, J5011 - as this one does - and I just need to move > > the connectors to the top PCB edge J1 and J2 locations so that the > > heat sink /fan and shroud will line up and fit. > > > > Since my old Weller WP25 soldering iron tops out at 250C, and is > > showing it age a bit (bought it ? decades ago), I splurged on a > > > > Hakko FX888DX-010BY - Digital Soldering Station > > > > 50-480C > > 65W ceramic heater > > chisel, 1.6 mm tip > > > > Now, most of my fiddling involves Sn/Pb, Sn/Ag/[Cu,Bi,Se] solders at > > 250-350C, and the Hakko wand has no problems liquefying these. > > However, I am not able to melt to remove the solder from the GPU PCB > > connectors, even at a setting of 400-480C. > > > > Does anyone have any ideas or information on the solder used on GPU > > PCBs and components? > > > > -Ed > > > > > > > > > > -- Brian
