None of the images load for me. The site is https but the srcset attributes all use http. Ironically the src attributes are correct.
> Update: Sept 10, 2019
Comments are from 2019 and 2020. Date is not clearly visible, but this is very old article.
In my personal opinion using low melting point solder means you aren't qualified to do the repair and maybe should train on broken boards first. Sure, it makes desoldering easier but it's very hard to clean completely and mixing it with regular solder compromises the joints, which is especially important in a highly thermally cycled device like a laptop. Sure, use it to remove a through hole connector from an interface board but maybe keep it away from the mainboard or power delivery..
Just use a preheater for dogs sake, although I think this part can be removed just fine with a regular iron using a bent piece of copper wire that touches all its pins, then heating that wire. Not like you need to care not to overheat it - it's dead already.
I have become disillusioned with consumer laptops in this price range. In the past 1-2 years, I have had two different Asus Vivobooks die on me just outside the 24month warranty window. In both cases, I had to pay addiotional money to then have their repair department quote me price 110% of a new specimen, for 'repair'. That such pricy devices can blow up irrepairably in a window of 25 months, is not acceptable.
I have a yoga from 2016 that had its backlight supply rail blow up. Very lame.
Title (2019)
We had a Lenovo IdeaPad die after 7 months. (An AMD model, in 2021.)
Their support was extremely painful... or deliberately slow. It took 4 phone calls (30-60 minutes each) over 3 weeks to finally get it escalated properly, to issue a replacement.
They would say, "we're escalating" then a week of silence. Then I call back, and they say, "It never got escalated", let me do that now. Repeat, repeat.
Eventually they shipped a replacement Yoga unit. (Motherboards w/AMD CPUs were on multi-month backlog during Covid)
Note that parts like this are more easily replaced using a hot air station than a soldering iron.
Looks like the audio amp fed by the MOSFET is a Realtek ALC1304, which I can't find any data on, but searching for the pin names finds that it could be a clone/compatible to the TI TPA3131D2/TPA3132D2. This part has a power limiter, but if the Realtek one is configured the same way, then as implemented in the laptop, it has no power limit.
It is very likely that the reason the transistor failed was because of poor cooling, as it is a low cost, high-resistance transistor that is running near its design limits.
The MOSFET that blew up is rated for 2A continuous, and it's in the ~19-20V VIN circuit, so it begs the question of just how loud he was playing his music when it happened!
That said, not the first time laptops have come with sub-par audio circuitry:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7205759
https://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/2012/12/10/how-to-fry-spea...
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/100530/can-volume-...