On 2012-12-14, fe...@crowfix.com <fe...@crowfix.com> wrote: > On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 12:34:49PM -0600, Bruce Hill wrote: > >> Boot with SystemRescueCd and you can't get to a prompt? > > Currently can't even boot -- it hangs wit a blank screen at the point > grub or the rescue DVD would take over. > >> Yes, your southbridge chipset could just happened to have failed at >> the same time; or it failed on the reboot; or USB and SATA are both >> on the southbridge that failed so you lost both, basically. > > Then my natural naive question is, can this be readily replaced, or > is it soldered in and/or obsolete? It is about 8 years old.
1) You probably can't get a replacement part. Parts like that have a production lifetime of about 6 months. You _might_ be able to find one on the secondary market -- if you're prepared to buy them by the tray-full. If you find them, they'll either be dirt cheap or ridiculously expensive. 2) If you had a replacement part, it's probably a BGA part, and you have to have special equipment (and/or a _lot_ of luck with a heat-gun) to get the old part off and the new part on without destroying the board or surrounding parts. Your best bet would be to take it to a board house that does prototype builds and have them replace it. But, unless you're a regular customer, they're going to charge you so much for the job that you could probably buy a half-dozen replacement motherboards along with CPUs and RAM to go with them [if there's no hope of real business, they'll probably just say 'no' unless they're bored and feel like doing you a favor]. The only practical thing to do is replace the motherboard. You might be able to find an old one on eBay that will accept the same CPU and RAM, but 8 years is a _long_ time... -- Grant
