On Thursday, April 16, 2020 at 11:40:59 PM UTC-4, Clare wrote:
On Thu, 16 Apr 2020 18:49:02 -0700 (PDT), Michael Terrell wrote:

On Thursday, April 16, 2020 at 9:53:54 AM UTC-4, Terry Coombs wrote:
On 4/16/2020 7:14 AM, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Michael Terrell"Â* wrote in message
...

On Tuesday, April 14, 2020 at 5:45:44 AM UTC-4, Jim Wilkins wrote:
"Michael Terrell"Â* wrote in message

Â* I know that you like old and cheap hardware, but XP is long out of
support.
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Anachronism alert! Call the Fashion Police! Anna Wintour is outraged!!
Prepare for Y2K and the Mayan Apocalypse!

My TV antennas and rotor are long out of support too, but they still
work fine and need less maintenance than my neighbor's Xfinity. XP
didn't really need Microsoft's loving hands / greedy fingers to keep
it running.

I still use tools made in the 1800's. My HP test equipment is from the
70's and 80's, my machine tools from the 50's and 60's, and my newest
vehicle is a 2000. All were built to last, which isn't the case with
new stuff like my 12VDC powered freezer which is a $200 throw-away.

My CAD, flight simulator and datalogging programs run under XP. I was
using XP for Internet access until a few weeks ago when I finally got
posting to Usenet working on this W7 machine. The only difficulty with
XP was the increasing obsolescence of the last Firefox version. MS
didn't completely abandon it, I recently installed .NET updates.

Datalogging energy use sometimes requires putting laptops where they
could fall such as next to the water heater or hallway thermostat, so
I use my least valuable ones, running XP and W2K. The problem is the
attached web of sensor and power cables.



Â* This desktop is my last XP box - and it's dual boot with 7 as an
alternate since it got a new mobo . If the old motherboard had not
started to fail it would still be a straight XP machine . I may try to
resurrect that motherboard , I found 3 slightly bulged electrolytic caps
after the swap , all easily accessible for replacement .

If they are the cluster closest to the CPU, you should replace all of them. The remaining old caps will continue to go up in ESR, and generate internal heat until they fail. I replace a lot of bad caps.
+1
Just be REAL CAREFULL removing the old ones. Easy to damage the vias
on a 6 layer PCB and if you miss a connection down there in the middle
of the board it is virtually impossible to find and fix.

I've worked on boards with 18 layers. You need the right rework tools to prevent damage on those. Most people don't use a hot enough desoldering iron, so it weakens the board's hold on the plated through vias. It's no fun having yo scrap a new board that cost over $8,00 to build.

If you use a vacuum desoldering iron and you don't get all of the solder the first try, use some 63/37 solder to replace what you removed. Then try again. You need that solder to transfer the heat to the bottom of the via. Another thing to watch. Often the lead is stuck to the wall of the via after the solder is removed. touch the lead with a hot soldering iron and push i away from the wall. Wait a second o two for the plating to cool, the remove the iron. I as NASA rated for soldering when I worked at Microdyne, and I repaired a lot of the old Commodore C64 computer boards. I had to teach the assemblers at Cincinnati Electronics how to solder the tabs of a small audio transformer to a circuit board at the rework station. The soldering irons weren't hot enough to melt the old solder to remove the transformer after their leads were cleared. I showed them how to use two irons and their wet wicking to remove it, and to heat the tab to bend it away from the plated through slot. Soldering was a union job. I worked in QA, so I had a very angry union steward glaring at me as I worked. They had two boards with that problem, so I looked her in the face and said, "Watch closely, I'm only going to do This one more time!"

She had got in my face my first day there, to inform me that 'No man has ever been able to solder anything!" I told here that I had a business during the daytime, and that I used up to a half pound a mont. Her jaw dropped.