I, too, just completed my power jack repair on my Compaq R3240US, thanks completely to the helpful posts here. Since I, too, had never soldered anything in my life, I was somewhat at a loss as to what to do, even after reading this. I tried heating up the pins and then putting the solder down as per the instructions, but no matter what I did, they didn't get hot enough to melt the solder. Finally, I ended up melting the solder directly against the iron and letting a little plop drip down on to each pin, which I'm sure was the wrong way to do it -- but it ended up doing the trick anyway.
As for remelting an exiting connection, there was almost no solder on my pins at all, so there was nothing to remelt. I melted and scraped away an incredibly thin film that might've been solder, but there was so little of it that it was really impossible to tell. Seems Compaq's workmanship was less than stellar on this machine.
In case anyone else approaches this from the same inexperienced perspective that I did, I was able to get everything I needed at Radio Shack. I got a soldering kit (with solder, iron, and stand), screwdriver set and anti-static wrist strap, all for under $20 total. I looked online and was even able to check to see if each item was in stock. That was helpful, since I needed the equipment immediately.
I printed out chapter five of the Compaq disassembly manual, as well as this image from rschultz's links. I wrote on that picture to keep track of which size screws went back into which holes. There are two screw sizes for almost all parts, although one or two interior screws were unique! I also printed message #60 in this thread, a post by achi2k, which helped me remember what order to do all of this stuff in. Although that post calls for removal of the heat sink itself, that step wasn't necessary for me. Also, the "combo" drive mentioned in the manual assumes that you have a floppy drive along with your DVD/CD drive. As was rschultz's case, I do not, so there was no ribbon cable to disconnect.
Total time spent was about four hours, and the experience wasn't too stressful. The hardest part was getting some of the screws to turn. I used little screwdrivers for the bulk of the job, but had a larger handled one on hand for the tightest screws because the little one just wouldn't budge the things.
This thread was incredibly helpful, by the way. Thanks to everyone who has contributed, I was able to fix my laptop for under $20, instead of either spending $150 on a docking station or spending who knows how much on a repair job. (Plus, I got to clean the cat hair out of my machine... always a plus!) The help was very much appreciated.
As for remelting an exiting connection, there was almost no solder on my pins at all, so there was nothing to remelt. I melted and scraped away an incredibly thin film that might've been solder, but there was so little of it that it was really impossible to tell. Seems Compaq's workmanship was less than stellar on this machine.
In case anyone else approaches this from the same inexperienced perspective that I did, I was able to get everything I needed at Radio Shack. I got a soldering kit (with solder, iron, and stand), screwdriver set and anti-static wrist strap, all for under $20 total. I looked online and was even able to check to see if each item was in stock. That was helpful, since I needed the equipment immediately.
I printed out chapter five of the Compaq disassembly manual, as well as this image from rschultz's links. I wrote on that picture to keep track of which size screws went back into which holes. There are two screw sizes for almost all parts, although one or two interior screws were unique! I also printed message #60 in this thread, a post by achi2k, which helped me remember what order to do all of this stuff in. Although that post calls for removal of the heat sink itself, that step wasn't necessary for me. Also, the "combo" drive mentioned in the manual assumes that you have a floppy drive along with your DVD/CD drive. As was rschultz's case, I do not, so there was no ribbon cable to disconnect.
Total time spent was about four hours, and the experience wasn't too stressful. The hardest part was getting some of the screws to turn. I used little screwdrivers for the bulk of the job, but had a larger handled one on hand for the tightest screws because the little one just wouldn't budge the things.
This thread was incredibly helpful, by the way. Thanks to everyone who has contributed, I was able to fix my laptop for under $20, instead of either spending $150 on a docking station or spending who knows how much on a repair job. (Plus, I got to clean the cat hair out of my machine... always a plus!) The help was very much appreciated.
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