What is reballing/reflowing?
Reflowing is a process where we heat up the original chip that fails on the board due to cold solder joints underneath the chip. This is caused by heat, flexing and poor design. Reheating the board and chip can caused the old solder to become weaker, so we use flux to help it become stronger but not back to its original state when you bought it new. But the main problem is still there! Microsoft has to use lead-free solder, which is required by law that any kid toys must be lead free solder. This is where the poor design comes into play.
Reflowed solder joints life expectancy
Xbox 360: 1 month to 1 year. |
Playstation 3: 4 months to 2 years. |
Laptop: 6 months to 2 years.
Reballing is a process where we lift off the defective chip and A) Repair it by put lead based solder (stronger solder) on the chip and placing it back on the board or B) Replacing the chip with a new chip also by putting lead based solder on it and placing it back on the board. Why does this work 99.99% of the time? Because the 99.99% of the time the main problem is either bad chip or bad solder, so it just needs to be replaced and so that the unit can be put back to new status. So what is the 0.01% chance this is where the pads on the board that hold the solder in place are bad. This is rare and if this happens it can not be repaired. The unit will need to be replaced.
Why is reballing better then sending it to manufacturer? Let me explain. The manufacturer will use lead free solder will is very brittle and can break easy. We will use Lead Based solder and will last much longer. Lead based solder is used in high end equipment like satellites.
Reballed chipset life expectancy
Xbox 360: 1 to 3 years and onwards. |
Playstation 3: 2 to 5 years and onwards. |
Laptop: 2 to 5 years and onwards.
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Laptops
Playstation 3
Xbox 360
Graphics Cards
