Hi Vince, The solder appearing from underneath the big chip is a phenomenon known as popcorning. In addition to solder, manufacturers add a glue like component called underfill, it is the excess of this that you can see around the edge of the chip. When the chip is heated, the solder underneath it expands (like most metals when heated) or least it would if it wasn't constrained by the underfill. Eventually the pressure created by the expanding solder overcomes the underfill and the solder escapes like steam. The underfill serves two main purposes : 1) adhesion - helps reduce the odds of damage from board flex. 2) water/fluid protection. I hope that helps. And to echo some of the other commentators, you don't want to apply *any* form of downward or angular pressure on BGA components as they are intended to float of their balls, gentle little horizontal "nudges" is the most you should do.
this is one of the few who knows what they are talking about, underfill is a bitch, i love samsung for pretty much never using it but there is problems in not using it i guess, constant charging ic replacements on samsungs.
Excellent advice, thanks for sharing the info on the underfill, that makes sense to me now. I was wondering why the solder was forcing through. So do you know a technique for removing the underfill if you wanted to try and reflow the chip? Thanks, Vince :-)
I work with underfilled chips almost daily. The only technique that I know of is to remove the chip from the board, remove the underfill from both the board and the chip, clean up the pads, reball the chip and flow it back into place. Trying to reflow without dealing with the underfill is almost impossible requiring an almost unobtainable level of control of the heat so as to get the solder barely liquid and to back off before it wants to expand too much. There are also variances in the makeup of the underfill with some being capable of containing the solder for longer than others. The underfill in most cases is as the name implies - under fill - fills all the voids under the chip and not just the edges as is the case with "edge bonding". Once you have popcorned a chip it will need to be reworked as there will be a new network of connections created by the escaping solder. In your example, I suspect that what we refer to as a "chip" is more likely to be a stack of chips possibly including : CPU, RAM, NAND or any combination thereof. On apple devices it would be CPU and RAM but on a lot of Samsung devices it is be all three. Stacked chips are a REAL nightmare to work with! I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to ask me anything, if I can help I'd be glad to.
@@fromtheashesit7782 Thanks, that reply contains so much info, I feel like I know so much more now...I didn't realise the glue (underfill) went all the way through. So unless you have worked on the chip before on another device I suppose you have no way of knowing if it has been edge bonded or under filled. I am sure I will come across plenty more chips on various different devices with underfill so this is really useful to know. Unfortunately reballing is a skill way beyond me at present. If you do know a way of telling if it is edge bonded or underfilled then it would be really useful to me and others reading this. Many thanks :-)
@@Mymatevince As a rule of thumb, if the glue forms a "down hill ski slope" from the edge of the chip down to the board it is more likely to be underfill than edge bonding. If it appears as more of a blob or bead of glue surrounding the chip then it is more likely to be edge bonding. It does however vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from process to process. Reballing really isn't that hard, you already have hot air and flux, all you need is a stencil, solder paste and some time to practice. My advice on reballing is to use drier paste, even if you have to dry some out a little before you use it.
Don't push down on BGA chips when the hot air is on them. It will mash all the solder balls into one big solder blob under the chip. Dave from EEVblog did the same thing when he tried to do BGA rework for the first time a few months ago.
Great vid Vince and nice try too, just a bit of advice, you do not need to push down on a BGA, the surface tension will pull the balls to the pads, also you only need to nudge one edge of the chip, if any joints are still soldered it would not move so seeing any movement just on the one edge means all balls have melted. Great effort :)
so, i work on phone ic replacement daily, the problem here is the "underfill" around and underneath the chip for waterproofing and shock-proofing, it needs to be lightly scraped away otherwise when trying to float the chip it will have no room to move (or breathe, odd i know) but the flux wants to flow through and will make a passage through eventually, if you remove the infill or not, so the solder balls are from heating while infill is still present, apple boards have it all over, its a right pain in the arse but its one of those learning curves dude, this is a big step up from through hole and some smd work, diagnostics and repairs to most phone motherboards sucks imo as i do it daily, i only got the hang of it last year and have been doing this for 11 years :/ when someone brings in a stereo or tv to repair i rejoice haha :D Dont stop though, you're progressing faster than i did and i now have my own shop :)
@@Mymatevince i scrape away gently with an surgical blade, something very sharp but thin, a little heat, around 200c will help move it right along :) soften it up, easier to peel instead of scrape i guess :P also you're more than welcome, you're videos help me see things daily that i'd otherwise overlook so thankyou.
in most cases flux, a little heat and sharp tweezers will do the job though, you will see the chip move quickly too, around the same rate as the others (time it takes to heat up and wiggle on pads) it was just being held by the underfill, creating a little vacuum under the chip :)
Hi, because the chip is a BGA so this means that he would need a stencil and solder balls (or solder paste) to redo the chip. And it probably wasn't related to the hardware but to the software, he should have tried the software first in my honest opinion :)
@@FixDaily I agree with that. But as this video is mainly made for entertainment I think removing the chip could be interesting. (PS. I know how BGA soldering/resoldering is done and only talking about this particular device)
try hard reset. Hold power button and volume up or down the same time and enter the recovery menu. Select clear data cache ... and then restart. to select the option use the volume buttons to go up and down and power button to confirm selection. It's in a loop sequence where the software is unable do load. At least you had fun and I enjoy it
@@Mymatevince That's true the under-fill messes up with the chip and the solder balls by lifting up or contracting it down, it depends of the heat, the thermal shock and the under-fill material, in this case, it contracted it down squishing the solder. When you mess with a under-filled chip you have to remove it and redo the soldering
Some chips are underfilled, you can't replace them or resolder them even the manufacturer can't. As in this case I think one of these components came loose from the pcb under these underfilling, it's a shame you didn't replace the backcover first and then send it in for warranty they probably fixed it as long they can't see you opened it, but now it is noticed under the imei number as broken by customers fault. As long nothings wrong with the pcb a mobile phone can be fixed, but liquid damage and bend circuit boards on these thing aren't. But at least you did a nice try.
Did you try using Odin first and see if flashing the original factory Rom and firmware would help Vince. It's only a usb cable needed a pc or laptop Odin and a download of the original software .I had it on my vdf 400 I think it was and I did just that and it stopped the boot loader loop and the phone worked again. Until I sat on it and smashed the screen and bent the frame . But the hard reset and soft reset you did are not all you could of tried software wise. Also when you held the button combination did you get the screen show up with the options of wipe cache partition and so on? Only ask as that means you could of put it into the mode to flash the Rom again .
Hi Dave, I didn't try the power/volume button combo this time but I tried it numerous times when it went faulty to begin with in Dec 2017. I could definitely get to that screen that gives you the 5 or 6 different options to reset phone, clear cache etc. I wish I had tried the new software after reading the comments but because I dropped it I didn't think it would be software related. The repair shop did say they tried new software but I don't know if they really did or not. Cheers for the info, hopefully I can try it in the future on another faulty phone :-)
@@Mymatevince no worries . I always try the software option first as it's the easiest. Although the downloads for the Rom files can take hours even though they are fairly small so it's always worth keeping them backed up. I'm unsure myself if it would of worked but from experience that is what I have found to be the easiest fix . I look forward to seeing the next one Vince. Oh and update on the neighbours iphone 6 . I fixed it after lots of fiddly work . He smashed the screen a day later :/ .
Haha, that is a classic. At least changing over the screen is relatively painless. If you have to do it for them make sure you undo the battery first (unlike me) because apparently there is a very high chance of blowing the backlight :-)
@@Mymatevince ah I didn't know that myself . I think I left it plugged in during the rebuild . So I'm lucky I didn't cause more damage myself . Thanks for that . I must say I was rather annoyed that he came back only a day later saying that something was wrong with the screen and it was clearly smashed. 😡
The solder balls may have come out because when heated the other solder balls under the chip may have pulled the chip down closer and literaly squashed any excess solder out. You have probably already noticed that the chip did move when you squashed it down. Maybe try again as a short 10 min vid. A bit confused as to why Vodaphone didnt fix the fault (not the case).
Nice attempt! Certainly not easy working on this stuff! It's strange that the solder balls have come out - I would be tempted to remove that large (and the smaller one) with hot air - just to see what's going on underneath. If you get a stencil (they are cheap on AliExpress), get some solder paste (cheap), align stencil, smear the paste over the holes - use hot air and you've reballed the chip. Clean pads with desolder braid and you can then mount the reballed chip. I think you could do this - just a question of getting the right stencil and hoping other components dont move around. I was going to try reballing the Gamecube I have (as that IS a ball issue too - proven). But I cannot find a stencil for it =/
Thanks Chris :-) That would be a lot of fun. I wonder whether there are countless stencils though or do chips of the same size have the same layout? Otherwise like your Gamecube it may be hard or impossible to obtain the correct stencil. I would love to see you attempt a reball in one of your vids. Do you think solder paste would be better than the solder balls you can buy?
I've ordered a universal stencil set from eBay - there's like 27 pieces in the kit. Maybe that would work for both these? I will have a go at the GameCube CPU but its pretty large - I imagine it will be difficult to remove and even hard to re-install afterwards....
@@GadgetUK164 I did see that one, £3.85 from Hong Kong. It looks like you need a clamp type thing to line it all up as well. Let me know if you have any success with it :-)
Vince if you ever need to look at a new phone that is similar to the phone to have now maybe check out the blackberry DTEK50 or DTEK60 it is my daily phone and I love it
When solder is molten it move and if there is a load (CPU chip) on top of it, and chip move with the solder. But if the chip been hold by a glue or some other thing, it will cause a solder ball move violently and it will cause the solder ball to touch the other solder ball and cause short circuit. And if the glue shrink down by the heat, it will pull the chip down and causing the solder ball to shoot out.
The first thing i would have done is tried odin to re flash the software. This same thing happened with a tablet i had. I dropped it and it dod the reboot thing. After a new flash it worked.
There are a lot of videos out there, where they reflow computer motherboards in the oven. Might be worth looking into, it would be a much more gentle heat.
And another sacrifice for the lead-god! Although I'd like you to make a video where you lift those devices (CORRECTION EDIT: BGA chips) up just to see how they look like underneath. While we're at it, why not also try to remove ALL solder on the BGA pads, add new solder on each side and simply see if surface tension will save the day?
Attila TheHUN That would be the _proper_ way of doing it... I was talking about an _improper_ way of doing it (simply applying solder to one or both sides, then see if it will reconnect to all pads), and whether that would fix it momentarily. I know that would be very suboptimal, just curious if it would allow the thing to work again (with no intention of it being a lasting repair anyway), and that he could continue his original fault-finding from there. At least for peace-of-mind. I know fully well that for a lasting repair, we would need a BGA stencil, BGA solder balls and a better workstation for such delicate tasks.
What typically happens is a pin or more is disconnected around either the cpu or memory area, this causes corruption of the software, when the phone tries to recover it keeps failing due to the software errors, each time it boot loops while the device has dry joints, the software will continue to create more corruption, There is also other things that are common to breaking away from the board like the inductor for one of the v_core power rails, maybe for memory, they only have 2pins. One issue is that some of the chips don't like heat, even cooking at 280c for 10s, this is where a pre-board heater is needed
You might try to go to iPad rehab on TH-cam and watch some of their videos. They work on a lot of Apple phones. And while this is an android phone maybe you can learn from some of the techniques they use. I wish you luck.
When you push down on the chips with melted solder you are pushing and squeezing the solder out of shape, only nudge the sides of the chip to tell if solder is melted.
I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to nudge and move around components that you're just reflowing, at least you shouldn't do that with BGA chips. I know it's convenient to know the solder has melted, but with the tiny distances between balls in such chips even a little movement can cause the balls to blob together and then all you can do is reball the whole thing.
I found this searching up the model of that phone. "Vodafone smart Platinum 7 is rebranded ALCATEL ONE TOUCH IDOL 4S, also named OT_VFD 900" I know its probably too late but it seems like there were some fixes for the Idol 4s bootloops. (Which should be exactly like the phone you have) pocketnow.com/vodafone-smart-platinum-7
Here is the link talking about how to reinstall the firmware via 2 methods. 4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=723034&st=1240#entry59470422 (it's in Russian so, use google translate) You just have a few programs to download to get it setup I believe. I can't find the original post but on XDA Developers, it mentioned someone got Idol 4S working again via one of those methods. If I can find anymore info, I'll post it for you. Hope you get it back to working again!
@@Mymatevince I already added a comment about it, but wouldn't it be possible to at least try and remove all solder on both sides, apply thick solder on each pad (both sides again), then simply heat it until surface tension lines it up? I know it's very suboptimal, but just out of curiosity... just to see if it will even boot up again. EDIT: The worst that can happen... well, aside from completely frying the chip (from wrongly connected pads)... is that you'll have to try again. The first sign I suppose that the chip IS working is if it gets hot when powered on. Like it did before those solder balls started bleeding out.
The hot chip is the cpu man it is easy to know that because of the thermal pad that is in contact with and if the cpu is bad I don't think it would display anything.
Usually a bootloop is caused by the software not the hardware (like the LG G series its caused by hardware) if its caused by software its as simple as booting the phone into the boot loader, and flashing the stock images with fastboot. Once you research everything bout flashing stock images its pretty easy
Found that google says it's a rebranded ALCATEL ONE TOUCH IDOL 4S, and you can get motherboards from the usa for about $25 shipped, but do your own comparisons first!
;@@MC-es1sl yes, Loius Rossmann gives a good explanation of Diode mode troubleshooting on his webpage: rossmanngroup.com/importance-diode-mode-measurement-troubleshooting-macbook-logic-board-circuitry/
Could be due to connectors in old Android as same in my LG G3 cat6.... disassembly clean connectors ....just dry it with heat gun add new heat sink compound if it heats ... Assemble it again then see it can malfunction due to faulty battery or even slightly moisture
Reminds me of my LG V10. I loved that phone, but the battery didn't last long and it got quite hot doing menial tasks like browsing Facebook. Eventually, the heat must have killed the CPU because it got a bootloop as well when I was trying to watch a TH-cam video on it. I was a week out of warranty with the carrier, and LG refused warranty because it "was an international model" (it was the US model, just with carrier specific software installed). I used a heat gun and brought it back long enough to recover my photos and videos, but it bootlooped again, not long after. The fault was recognized to be a manufacturing defect, affecting quite a few flagship LG Phones. Its still there, gathering dust until the day I manage to find a replacement CPU or board.
@@davidmayr4540 I've never gone back to LG after that. I made the mistake of switching from my Moto X2 to the V10 after my contract was up. Now I'm on my third year with my Moto Z2 Play. The battery lasts me for about 2 days, its still silky smooth, and it doesn't get hot at all. Never switching from Motorola ever again!
It happened at the point you moved onto the second set of chips and part way through you changed direction of air flow and seconds after lifting the tape covering the 2 caps on the right you cooked the CPU, lift it and reball
Hi Vince, I've bought a Nintendo Switch with a faulty charge port, do you think a replacement of the port is doable with basic soldering skills and a hotair station?
Hi, with flux and tweezers and a steady hand I think you may be successful. I am still not confident doing it so I may not be the best one to ask. If you have any old broken laptops or anything with chips on it then maybe you could practice on a few of them first to get the feel for it. I hope it goes well for you....Good luck :-)
If you look closely you have reflowed RAM (upper layer of the CPU. And that glue must come off first, when you reflowing you puting glue mix with soldering. Anyway interesting video to watch! Thanks 😄
hola tengo el mismo problema pero se reinicia contacte el movil y no sale del logo le quiro pasara el firware pero no se si es mtk o tine otro prosesador este movil puedes alludarme
Hi important tip: when dealing with broken glass from phones always put tape on the broken glass to avoid further glass dust going to your eyes or lungs. If you can separate them without further damage, always try to remove the parts so they don't rub to each other while removing the entire glass, creating more dust. Also when you have such a fault: Loop boot, most likely is related with the firmware, by this you should try to reflash it before trying to go deep into the guts. Not always assume that because of a drop the board got destroyed, the drop most likely have interfered with the flash, for example it was working and something got disconnected for a fraction of a second that ended up on memory corruption 26:48 if you squish it you'll create shorts everywhere, you can do this but you have to add flux again and reflow it and touch it in one side so the bridges go away - this work with small chips, these larger ones are more easy to not work at all. Great video, you can always buy another board and a new back and i'll work fine and cheaer :)
I had a similar thing happen on my phone, I fell from my bike and phone took a huge impact and The memory chip (EMMC chip) got dislodged and phone would randomly go into bootloop. I could apply some pressure on the chip and then flash it again with rom and then phone would work fine for some time but wasn't a permanent fix. So I took it to repair shop and they reflowed that chip and it worked fine since then.
Maybe it DID need a new firmware?? At least before you bricked it by removing parts. And if you are asking, YES, in most cases it CAN be done at home with a computer and cable.
I had similar problem with mediatech chip phone it boitlooped 5-8 times and died , found out its power supply killed it while charging including the charger that was pulse charging causing it showing charging, disconnected and repeat
Next time buy a new OEM back on eBay or AliExpress and get your warranty. Also all you needed to do was flash a new firmware via your pc and a flash program like Odin for Samsung. Because if the recovery worked the chip is fine.
It was sistem fault I was having this problem on 3 phone samsung galaxy j5 2015, samsung galaxy note 1, some old stupid phone. You was need just to root this phone and install newer or older android version. Turn the phone battery off than power device on with holding power and volume up button than select fast boot and plug the phone in pc. On pc you need to install app to root it. Select run as administrator and root it. After rooting you will need to hold power button and only press volume down. For me it was working supper on any phone and all of this phones are still working better then new ones
The problem seems to be on the software side , before u messed up the main chip.Maybe you can learn how to solder underfiled chips and make a revisit video.When you get back to the point that you started first time , you can flash new firmware , which is an easy job ,most of the times. :)
Someone mentioned the power button might be jammed. I didn't test it with the multimeter but it didn't feel jammed. I hope it wasn't that simple!!! Most comments say it was a software issue so I 'balls up' this one big time!!!!
Same issue with the Mi A2 lite I drop it a couple of times flat on the floor on its back put it in my pocket because it was fine when I checked it and few mins later felt it vibrate I take it out thinking it's a notification but ended up seeing my phone turned off and rebooted and stuck at the bootloop I just sent it to the service centre they thought it was a software issue so they swap it few week later it happened again stuck at bootloop so I return it back to the service centre and they swap the motherboard and now it's fine
Tbh buddy. It seems the battery replacement that caused the problem.. the battery has failed.. Causing possible surge detection to occur... and basically the chip as gone due to it forcing constant boot loops until the point the chips given up... some batteries arent upto safe standards and phone will just reject them Good thing is whole main boards for them phones are dirt cheap... even most of the parts. order new battery and main board and you have it fixed up :)
You can TRY owen reflow. Ok, it is a two layer. Still, have a look on the web, there are "controllers" that "convert" a grill owen into sort of reflow owen, controlling temperature to follow different profiles (recipes). Ok, it a bit gettho, but who is getting a 5 zone reflow owen at home ?????-
I had a dropped iPhone that was boot looping I removed bag chip cleaned the board and gently with some solder went over the balls on the chip and then just put it back on nothing to loose as the phone is broken anyway in my case it worked fine and I am still using the phone now
I had the same problem with my HTC M7, and the only way to boot was to freez it ant it works for a while... the same with a Samsung Note 4 the only ways to start the Phone is put it in a freezer for a while, but than it work as long you do not shut it down..
iSheep go bleah in another place 😜 This is a very decent Vodafone operator device (didn't watch yet and dunno who the OEM is, probably no1 knows). QHD screen, Snap 652 (still alive and current imo), u name it.
the apple crowd is getting left behind. No 5g announced, all phones have 3 gigabytes of ram or less, lackluster processors. If it wasn't so strictly sandboxed they would realize that its just a midgrade phone.
Hi Vince I searched on Ebay for the motherboard(mainboard) for your phone didn't find anything but good news is the screen of the phone cost a lot of money like 100+ dollars you can try sell it.
People that bought this phone should have sued Vodaphone. These devices have a bootloop issue and because of its exclusivity it's impossible to find parts to repair it.
It's made by ZTE or Alcatel I believe so I don't see why you would sue Vodafone. They still have a warranty on them but didn't repair this because it was damaged.
I have had the same issue with my Galaxy s6 without dropping it and they Said its not repairable... maybe it was but it might Cost to much... so they changed the phone.
Two years ago my lg g4 suffered the infamous bootloop and i fix it replacing the entire motherboard, i found it non aliexpress at 70€ (i don't know the exact exchange in gpb sorry)
No expert but the fact it booted up and displayed the Android logo makers me think the chips were fine ,I would possibly put the blame one the power button brewing stuck on hence it coming on and going off that said I could' be completely wrong ,I would say they searching eBay or AliExpress for a replacement main board might be a cost effective way of repair of you can find one. Still it's all learning I made a mistake changing a laser on an lg dvd player i believe u only should of undone one of the rails the laser is fitted to one I believe had the laser alignment on and should be left only way now it's too by amech with laser but at £ 13 it's not worth it still it came with 5 speakers and a sub and was free as it was something someone threw away ,I made the same mistake twice messed the laser alignment up on a sharp ghetto blaster still I know now it's all a learning process
What typically happens is a pin or more is disconnected around either the cpu or memory, this causes corruption of the software, when the phone tries to recover it keeps failing due to the software errors, each time it boot loops while the device has dry joints, the software will continue to create more corruption, There is also other things like the inductor for one of the v_core power rails, maybe for memory
Hi Vince, The solder appearing from underneath the big chip is a phenomenon known as popcorning. In addition to solder, manufacturers add a glue like component called underfill, it is the excess of this that you can see around the edge of the chip. When the chip is heated, the solder underneath it expands (like most metals when heated) or least it would if it wasn't constrained by the underfill. Eventually the pressure created by the expanding solder overcomes the underfill and the solder escapes like steam.
The underfill serves two main purposes : 1) adhesion - helps reduce the odds of damage from board flex. 2) water/fluid protection.
I hope that helps.
And to echo some of the other commentators, you don't want to apply *any* form of downward or angular pressure on BGA components as they are intended to float of their balls, gentle little horizontal "nudges" is the most you should do.
this is one of the few who knows what they are talking about, underfill is a bitch, i love samsung for pretty much never using it but there is problems in not using it i guess, constant charging ic replacements on samsungs.
Excellent advice, thanks for sharing the info on the underfill, that makes sense to me now. I was wondering why the solder was forcing through. So do you know a technique for removing the underfill if you wanted to try and reflow the chip?
Thanks, Vince :-)
I work with underfilled chips almost daily. The only technique that I know of is to remove the chip from the board, remove the underfill from both the board and the chip, clean up the pads, reball the chip and flow it back into place. Trying to reflow without dealing with the underfill is almost impossible requiring an almost unobtainable level of control of the heat so as to get the solder barely liquid and to back off before it wants to expand too much.
There are also variances in the makeup of the underfill with some being capable of containing the solder for longer than others.
The underfill in most cases is as the name implies - under fill - fills all the voids under the chip and not just the edges as is the case with "edge bonding".
Once you have popcorned a chip it will need to be reworked as there will be a new network of connections created by the escaping solder.
In your example, I suspect that what we refer to as a "chip" is more likely to be a stack of chips possibly including : CPU, RAM, NAND or any combination thereof. On apple devices it would be CPU and RAM but on a lot of Samsung devices it is be all three.
Stacked chips are a REAL nightmare to work with!
I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to ask me anything, if I can help I'd be glad to.
@@fromtheashesit7782 Thanks, that reply contains so much info, I feel like I know so much more now...I didn't realise the glue (underfill) went all the way through. So unless you have worked on the chip before on another device I suppose you have no way of knowing if it has been edge bonded or under filled. I am sure I will come across plenty more chips on various different devices with underfill so this is really useful to know. Unfortunately reballing is a skill way beyond me at present. If you do know a way of telling if it is edge bonded or underfilled then it would be really useful to me and others reading this. Many thanks :-)
@@Mymatevince As a rule of thumb, if the glue forms a "down hill ski slope" from the edge of the chip down to the board it is more likely to be underfill than edge bonding. If it appears as more of a blob or bead of glue surrounding the chip then it is more likely to be edge bonding. It does however vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from process to process.
Reballing really isn't that hard, you already have hot air and flux, all you need is a stencil, solder paste and some time to practice. My advice on reballing is to use drier paste, even if you have to dry some out a little before you use it.
Don't push down on BGA chips when the hot air is on them. It will mash all the solder balls into one big solder blob under the chip. Dave from EEVblog did the same thing when he tried to do BGA rework for the first time a few months ago.
Thanks for the tips, I will try to find his video. Cheers :-)
Great vid Vince and nice try too, just a bit of advice, you do not need to push down on a BGA, the surface tension will pull the balls to the pads, also you only need to nudge one edge of the chip, if any joints are still soldered it would not move so seeing any movement just on the one edge means all balls have melted. Great effort :)
Excellent, thanks for these tips. In the future I will just nudge one corner and I won't press down :-)
so, i work on phone ic replacement daily, the problem here is the "underfill" around and underneath the chip for waterproofing and shock-proofing, it needs to be lightly scraped away otherwise when trying to float the chip it will have no room to move (or breathe, odd i know) but the flux wants to flow through and will make a passage through eventually, if you remove the infill or not, so the solder balls are from heating while infill is still present, apple boards have it all over, its a right pain in the arse but its one of those learning curves dude, this is a big step up from through hole and some smd work, diagnostics and repairs to most phone motherboards sucks imo as i do it daily, i only got the hang of it last year and have been doing this for 11 years :/ when someone brings in a stereo or tv to repair i rejoice haha :D Dont stop though, you're progressing faster than i did and i now have my own shop :)
Thanks for the tips Kevin, I appreciate it :-) With the infill do you scrape it away or use a chemical to soften it up and then scrape it?
@@Mymatevince i scrape away gently with an surgical blade, something very sharp but thin, a little heat, around 200c will help move it right along :) soften it up, easier to peel instead of scrape i guess :P also you're more than welcome, you're videos help me see things daily that i'd otherwise overlook so thankyou.
in most cases flux, a little heat and sharp tweezers will do the job though, you will see the chip move quickly too, around the same rate as the others (time it takes to heat up and wiggle on pads) it was just being held by the underfill, creating a little vacuum under the chip :)
Cheers Kevin, nice to hear the different way people do stuff.
Thanks mate :-)
I see you used one micro paul of flux, Louis Rossmann would be impressed! Love the videos
The bigger the glob, the better the job.
There is no such thing as too much flux
you guys obviously never really cleaned flux from a board without an ultrasonic cleaner
@@AttilaTheHun333333 it's not too bad when you've got lots of ipa, but it can end up a bit sticky.
@@AttilaTheHun333333 You really need to watch Louis Rossmann channel.
I'm glad you gave that repair place a hard time. That's what they all do now-a-days. They rely on the fact that you will just roll over and give up.
Why didn't you take the chip out? The phone is dead anyway but you would have known what is going on underneath it.
Your comment was first and you spoiled the whole video. :D
@@DeRive_ sorry mate
@@AndrewFomin Its fine. :)
Hi, because the chip is a BGA so this means that he would need a stencil and solder balls (or solder paste) to redo the chip.
And it probably wasn't related to the hardware but to the software, he should have tried the software first in my honest opinion :)
@@FixDaily I agree with that. But as this video is mainly made for entertainment I think removing the chip could be interesting. (PS. I know how BGA soldering/resoldering is done and only talking about this particular device)
Hi vince, for the future: A bootloop is more often than not cause by software corruption instead of a hardware one. At least you had some fun ;)
Yeah no matter how strange the behavior is is any signs of life are there, always try flashing the stock rom. Often people softbrick their phones
True, but sometimes is because a piece of the hardware who just stop working, for example, the LG G4 Bootloop issues
try hard reset. Hold power button and volume up or down the same time and enter the recovery menu. Select clear data cache ... and then restart. to select the option use the volume buttons to go up and down and power button to confirm selection. It's in a loop sequence where the software is unable do load. At least you had fun and I enjoy it
As the other already suggest re-ball that chip, it will be fun exercise and you will learn a lot from doing it.
You can't hot underfilled chips! You can try to remove glue first at ~200C, but not allways this is possible.
Thanks for the advice :-)
@@Mymatevince That's true the under-fill messes up with the chip and the solder balls by lifting up or contracting it down, it depends of the heat, the thermal shock and the under-fill material, in this case, it contracted it down squishing the solder.
When you mess with a under-filled chip you have to remove it and redo the soldering
@@FixDaily Thanks FixDaily :-)
Some chips are underfilled, you can't replace them or resolder them even the manufacturer can't. As in this case I think one of these components came loose from the pcb under these underfilling, it's a shame you didn't replace the backcover first and then send it in for warranty they probably fixed it as long they can't see you opened it, but now it is noticed under the imei number as broken by customers fault. As long nothings wrong with the pcb a mobile phone can be fixed, but liquid damage and bend circuit boards on these thing aren't. But at least you did a nice try.
Did you try using Odin first and see if flashing the original factory Rom and firmware would help Vince. It's only a usb cable needed a pc or laptop Odin and a download of the original software .I had it on my vdf 400 I think it was and I did just that and it stopped the boot loader loop and the phone worked again. Until I sat on it and smashed the screen and bent the frame . But the hard reset and soft reset you did are not all you could of tried software wise. Also when you held the button combination did you get the screen show up with the options of wipe cache partition and so on? Only ask as that means you could of put it into the mode to flash the Rom again .
Hi Dave, I didn't try the power/volume button combo this time but I tried it numerous times when it went faulty to begin with in Dec 2017. I could definitely get to that screen that gives you the 5 or 6 different options to reset phone, clear cache etc. I wish I had tried the new software after reading the comments but because I dropped it I didn't think it would be software related. The repair shop did say they tried new software but I don't know if they really did or not. Cheers for the info, hopefully I can try it in the future on another faulty phone :-)
@@Mymatevince no worries . I always try the software option first as it's the easiest. Although the downloads for the Rom files can take hours even though they are fairly small so it's always worth keeping them backed up. I'm unsure myself if it would of worked but from experience that is what I have found to be the easiest fix . I look forward to seeing the next one Vince. Oh and update on the neighbours iphone 6 . I fixed it after lots of fiddly work . He smashed the screen a day later :/ .
Haha, that is a classic. At least changing over the screen is relatively painless. If you have to do it for them make sure you undo the battery first (unlike me) because apparently there is a very high chance of blowing the backlight :-)
@@Mymatevince ah I didn't know that myself . I think I left it plugged in during the rebuild . So I'm lucky I didn't cause more damage myself . Thanks for that . I must say I was rather annoyed that he came back only a day later saying that something was wrong with the screen and it was clearly smashed. 😡
The solder balls may have come out because when heated the other solder balls under the chip may have pulled the chip down closer and literaly squashed any excess solder out. You have probably already noticed that the chip did move when you squashed it down. Maybe try again as a short 10 min vid. A bit confused as to why Vodaphone didnt fix the fault (not the case).
Nice attempt! Certainly not easy working on this stuff! It's strange that the solder balls have come out - I would be tempted to remove that large (and the smaller one) with hot air - just to see what's going on underneath. If you get a stencil (they are cheap on AliExpress), get some solder paste (cheap), align stencil, smear the paste over the holes - use hot air and you've reballed the chip. Clean pads with desolder braid and you can then mount the reballed chip. I think you could do this - just a question of getting the right stencil and hoping other components dont move around. I was going to try reballing the Gamecube I have (as that IS a ball issue too - proven). But I cannot find a stencil for it =/
Thanks Chris :-) That would be a lot of fun. I wonder whether there are countless stencils though or do chips of the same size have the same layout? Otherwise like your Gamecube it may be hard or impossible to obtain the correct stencil. I would love to see you attempt a reball in one of your vids. Do you think solder paste would be better than the solder balls you can buy?
I've ordered a universal stencil set from eBay - there's like 27 pieces in the kit. Maybe that would work for both these? I will have a go at the GameCube CPU but its pretty large - I imagine it will be difficult to remove and even hard to re-install afterwards....
@@GadgetUK164 I did see that one, £3.85 from Hong Kong. It looks like you need a clamp type thing to line it all up as well. Let me know if you have any success with it :-)
I have one of those phones
You are my favourite youtuber
Since they would not replace it under warranty because of the crack on the back cover, why not just replace the back cover?
the back cover on most android phones have the IMEI number and the model. if you buy a new one it wont have it. the company wont fix it.
Vince if you ever need to look at a new phone that is similar to the phone to have now maybe check out the blackberry DTEK50 or DTEK60 it is my daily phone and I love it
When solder is molten it move and if there is a load (CPU chip) on top of it, and chip move with the solder. But if the chip been hold by a glue or some other thing, it will cause a solder ball move violently and it will cause the solder ball to touch the other solder ball and cause short circuit. And if the glue shrink down by the heat, it will pull the chip down and causing the solder ball to shoot out.
The first thing i would have done is tried odin to re flash the software. This same thing happened with a tablet i had. I dropped it and it dod the reboot thing. After a new flash it worked.
Horlicks Odin only works with Samsung’s
He could use sp flash tool
There are a lot of videos out there, where they reflow computer motherboards in the oven. Might be worth looking into, it would be a much more gentle heat.
What is the sorting tray where you store the screw order technically called?
And another sacrifice for the lead-god!
Although I'd like you to make a video where you lift those devices (CORRECTION EDIT: BGA chips) up just to see how they look like underneath.
While we're at it, why not also try to remove ALL solder on the BGA pads, add new solder on each side and simply see if surface tension will save the day?
You need a bga stencil for that
Attila TheHUN
That would be the _proper_ way of doing it... I was talking about an _improper_ way of doing it (simply applying solder to one or both sides, then see if it will reconnect to all pads), and whether that would fix it momentarily.
I know that would be very suboptimal, just curious if it would allow the thing to work again (with no intention of it being a lasting repair anyway), and that he could continue his original fault-finding from there. At least for peace-of-mind.
I know fully well that for a lasting repair, we would need a BGA stencil, BGA solder balls and a better workstation for such delicate tasks.
Workshop tour would make a nice video!
Great video Vince.
What typically happens is a pin or more is disconnected around either the cpu or memory area, this causes corruption of the software, when the phone tries to recover it keeps failing due to the software errors, each time it boot loops while the device has dry joints, the software will continue to create more corruption,
There is also other things that are common to breaking away from the board like the inductor for one of the v_core power rails, maybe for memory, they only have 2pins.
One issue is that some of the chips don't like heat, even cooking at 280c for 10s, this is where a pre-board heater is needed
You might try to go to iPad rehab on TH-cam and watch some of their videos. They work on a lot of Apple phones. And while this is an android phone maybe you can learn from some of the techniques they use. I wish you luck.
Hi Vince. Could you not buy one of those circuit boards of Ebay quite cheaply? Mick.
Did the company you bought the phone from not offer any protection plan for it? I got mine insured by my carrier, and I didn`t get it from them.
When you push down on the chips with melted solder you are pushing and squeezing the solder out of shape, only nudge the sides of the chip to tell if solder is melted.
I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to nudge and move around components that you're just reflowing, at least you shouldn't do that with BGA chips. I know it's convenient to know the solder has melted, but with the tiny distances between balls in such chips even a little movement can cause the balls to blob together and then all you can do is reball the whole thing.
Love your videos
Need tooooo
did you check the charge section at the bottom ?
I found this searching up the model of that phone. "Vodafone smart Platinum 7 is rebranded ALCATEL ONE TOUCH IDOL 4S, also named OT_VFD 900" I know its probably too late but it seems like there were some fixes for the Idol 4s bootloops. (Which should be exactly like the phone you have)
pocketnow.com/vodafone-smart-platinum-7
Thanks, I will Google the One Touch to see what I could have tried :-)
Here is the link talking about how to reinstall the firmware via 2 methods.
4pda.ru/forum/index.php?showtopic=723034&st=1240#entry59470422
(it's in Russian so, use google translate)
You just have a few programs to download to get it setup I believe. I can't find the original post but on XDA Developers, it mentioned someone got Idol 4S working again via one of those methods. If I can find anymore info, I'll post it for you. Hope you get it back to working again!
ah the puzzle is complete 😄 looks like they modified the design a bit tho...
The solder balls pop out because of the underfill or glue once they pop out then you have to take the chip off and Reball 😳
Thanks for the advice :-)
@@Mymatevince I already added a comment about it, but wouldn't it be possible to at least try and remove all solder on both sides, apply thick solder on each pad (both sides again), then simply heat it until surface tension lines it up?
I know it's very suboptimal, but just out of curiosity... just to see if it will even boot up again.
EDIT: The worst that can happen... well, aside from completely frying the chip (from wrongly connected pads)... is that you'll have to try again.
The first sign I suppose that the chip IS working is if it gets hot when powered on. Like it did before those solder balls started bleeding out.
It could be worth a try. Would be a fun one if it worked :-)
The hot chip is the cpu man it is easy to know that because of the thermal pad that is in contact with and if the cpu is bad I don't think it would display anything.
Awesome video as always and this phone is fit for the trash can or bin
Usually a bootloop is caused by the software not the hardware (like the LG G series its caused by hardware) if its caused by software its as simple as booting the phone into the boot loader, and flashing the stock images with fastboot. Once you research everything bout flashing stock images its pretty easy
Found that google says it's a rebranded ALCATEL ONE TOUCH IDOL 4S, and you can get motherboards from the usa for about $25 shipped, but do your own comparisons first!
Thanks, I will Google it :-)
Vince try using DIODE MODE measurements for troubleshooting, far more useful.
Problem with that is you need a working board to compare the readings against don't you ?
;@@MC-es1sl yes, Loius Rossmann gives a good explanation of Diode mode troubleshooting on his webpage: rossmanngroup.com/importance-diode-mode-measurement-troubleshooting-macbook-logic-board-circuitry/
I am sorry to tell you that Jessa in NYC is the only person who can fix those mobile phones.
Could be due to connectors in old Android as same in my LG G3 cat6.... disassembly clean connectors ....just dry it with heat gun add new heat sink compound if it heats ... Assemble it again then see it can malfunction due to faulty battery or even slightly moisture
Reminds me of my LG V10. I loved that phone, but the battery didn't last long and it got quite hot doing menial tasks like browsing Facebook. Eventually, the heat must have killed the CPU because it got a bootloop as well when I was trying to watch a TH-cam video on it. I was a week out of warranty with the carrier, and LG refused warranty because it "was an international model" (it was the US model, just with carrier specific software installed). I used a heat gun and brought it back long enough to recover my photos and videos, but it bootlooped again, not long after. The fault was recognized to be a manufacturing defect, affecting quite a few flagship LG Phones. Its still there, gathering dust until the day I manage to find a replacement CPU or board.
One of my 7 Lg phones is not boot looping.... Many LG phones have that problem... Switched to Samsung
@@davidmayr4540 I've never gone back to LG after that. I made the mistake of switching from my Moto X2 to the V10 after my contract was up. Now I'm on my third year with my Moto Z2 Play. The battery lasts me for about 2 days, its still silky smooth, and it doesn't get hot at all. Never switching from Motorola ever again!
It happened at the point you moved onto the second set of chips and part way through you changed direction of air flow and seconds after lifting the tape covering the 2 caps on the right you cooked the CPU, lift it and reball
that sizzling sound is making me nervous and that must smell horrible.
It might be that rubber mat
Hi Vince,
I've bought a Nintendo Switch with a faulty charge port, do you think a replacement of the port is doable with basic soldering skills and a hotair station?
Hi, with flux and tweezers and a steady hand I think you may be successful. I am still not confident doing it so I may not be the best one to ask. If you have any old broken laptops or anything with chips on it then maybe you could practice on a few of them first to get the feel for it. I hope it goes well for you....Good luck :-)
@@Mymatevince Thanks Vince, I will give it a try after some practice, have a nice weekend.
If you look closely you have reflowed RAM (upper layer of the CPU. And that glue must come off first, when you reflowing you puting glue mix with soldering. Anyway interesting video to watch! Thanks 😄
What is the blue tray/mat you work on? Thanks
It's a rubber tray. organizer tray. I have the same and is good and useful
hola tengo el mismo problema pero se reinicia contacte el movil y no sale del logo le quiro pasara el firware pero no se si es mtk o tine otro prosesador este movil puedes alludarme
Hi important tip: when dealing with broken glass from phones always put tape on the broken glass to avoid further glass dust going to your eyes or lungs. If you can separate them without further damage, always try to remove the parts so they don't rub to each other while removing the entire glass, creating more dust.
Also when you have such a fault: Loop boot, most likely is related with the firmware, by this you should try to reflash it before trying to go deep into the guts. Not always assume that because of a drop the board got destroyed, the drop most likely have interfered with the flash, for example it was working and something got disconnected for a fraction of a second that ended up on memory corruption
26:48 if you squish it you'll create shorts everywhere, you can do this but you have to add flux again and reflow it and touch it in one side so the bridges go away - this work with small chips, these larger ones are more easy to not work at all.
Great video, you can always buy another board and a new back and i'll work fine and cheaer :)
Thank you. Great tips, I wish I had tried the software first to see if it made any difference. Next time I will try that before taking it apart :-)
@@Mymatevince NP :)
@@Mymatevince hi
I had a similar thing happen on my phone, I fell from my bike and phone took a huge impact and The memory chip (EMMC chip) got dislodged and phone would randomly go into bootloop. I could apply some pressure on the chip and then flash it again with rom and then phone would work fine for some time but wasn't a permanent fix. So I took it to repair shop and they reflowed that chip and it worked fine since then.
I feel so bad for you vince because that was your good phone
What you could've done is heat up the EMMC chip and then try power on the device. This works on faulty chips from phones like the Google Nexus 5X.
Usually it's one of the coils that get cracked or broken off the board that causes the boot loop
Maybe it DID need a new firmware??
At least before you bricked it by removing parts.
And if you are asking, YES, in most cases it CAN be done at home with a computer and cable.
I had similar problem with mediatech chip phone it boitlooped 5-8 times and died , found out its power supply killed it while charging including the charger that was pulse charging causing it showing charging, disconnected and repeat
What did you say to get your phone back? I have a feeling you just said ‘give me my phone back you, give my phone back you,’ so on and so on
Vince check out this guy. Its in UK, has real repair shop + makes tutorial videos. The channel is called "electronic repair school". Good luck.
Next time buy a new OEM back on eBay or AliExpress and get your warranty. Also all you needed to do was flash a new firmware via your pc and a flash program like Odin for Samsung. Because if the recovery worked the chip is fine.
The solder would be boiling residual flux encapsulated by the epoxy, once the epoxy gave way the solder escaped along with gases due to pressure..
Tbh I would see if you can get a donnor to fix it and a working one to get the other parts some use as a back up
It was sistem fault I was having this problem on 3 phone samsung galaxy j5 2015, samsung galaxy note 1, some old stupid phone. You was need just to root this phone and install newer or older android version. Turn the phone battery off than power device on with holding power and volume up button than select fast boot and plug the phone in pc. On pc you need to install app to root it. Select run as administrator and root it. After rooting you will need to hold power button and only press volume down. For me it was working supper on any phone and all of this phones are still working better then new ones
Thanks for the information :-)
The problem seems to be on the software side , before u messed up the main chip.Maybe you can learn how to solder underfiled chips and make a revisit video.When you get back to the point that you started first time , you can flash new firmware , which is an easy job ,most of the times. :)
Looks like it has a Mediatek SOC so just needed Mediatek windows reflash tool and appropriate firmware - Could of being a quick and easy fix
Its a snapdragon 652, not a mediatek chip set.
@@padre443 ah right, didn't realize but same difference really just need the reflash tool
What? Fixing droped phone with software? This is like the "download more RAM" joke but on the next level.
My alcatel one touch pop icon did that one day random freezing and boot looping, just reheated the entire board and it went away.
I wonder which button was jammed? WAIT A MINUTE! Did you check them at any stage? meh... I dropped a Like anyways..
Someone mentioned the power button might be jammed. I didn't test it with the multimeter but it didn't feel jammed. I hope it wasn't that simple!!! Most comments say it was a software issue so I 'balls up' this one big time!!!!
you can see the solder ball pop out of the chip at 25:05 when you say it popped, its to the right of the screen
Same issue with the Mi A2 lite I drop it a couple of times flat on the floor on its back put it in my pocket because it was fine when I checked it and few mins later felt it vibrate I take it out thinking it's a notification but ended up seeing my phone turned off and rebooted and stuck at the bootloop I just sent it to the service centre they thought it was a software issue so they swap it few week later it happened again stuck at bootloop so I return it back to the service centre and they swap the motherboard and now it's fine
Thanks for the info :-)
I had the same issue. Mine was a stuck or shorted power button. It was always pressed. That*s was also can cause a bootloop
the company that tried stealing you phone got one thing right. that it doesnt turn on
I think the phone is over heating put themal paste on the big chip big fan of your work
I dont think so! The phone does boot loop! If its overheating it would turn off
Hey vince how a about a revisit?
Tbh buddy. It seems the battery replacement that caused the problem.. the battery has failed.. Causing possible surge detection to occur... and basically the chip as gone due to it forcing constant boot loops until the point the chips given up... some batteries arent upto safe standards and phone will just reject them
Good thing is whole main boards for them phones are dirt cheap... even most of the parts. order new battery and main board and you have it fixed up :)
Ben The Boss Jackson no it probably needs a reflashed rom
You can TRY owen reflow. Ok, it is a two layer. Still, have a look on the web, there are "controllers" that "convert" a grill owen into sort of reflow owen, controlling temperature to follow different profiles (recipes). Ok, it a bit gettho, but who is getting a 5 zone reflow owen at home ?????-
I had a dropped iPhone that was boot looping I removed bag chip cleaned the board and gently with some solder went over the balls on the chip and then just put it back on nothing to loose as the phone is broken anyway in my case it worked fine and I am still using the phone now
Excellent :-)
I like to see you do this
I had the same problem with my HTC M7, and the only way to boot was to freez it ant it works for a while... the same with a Samsung Note 4 the only ways to start the Phone is put it in a freezer for a while, but than it work as long you do not shut it down..
iSheep go bleah in another place 😜 This is a very decent Vodafone operator device (didn't watch yet and dunno who the OEM is, probably no1 knows). QHD screen, Snap 652 (still alive and current imo), u name it.
the apple crowd is getting left behind. No 5g announced, all phones have 3 gigabytes of ram or less, lackluster processors. If it wasn't so strictly sandboxed they would realize that its just a midgrade phone.
You could of downloaded original firmware on your computer and use odin to flash it to phone by putting phone in download mode
It wasnt a chip problem at all it was a system problem it got in a bootloop if u would look on google how to reinstall the os because its quite easy
Oh no! We thought Vince might actually fix something for himself! Nevermind, I am sure he will soon lol!
Hi Vince
I searched on Ebay for the motherboard(mainboard) for your phone didn't find anything but good news is the screen of the phone cost a lot of money like 100+ dollars you can try sell it.
People that bought this phone should have sued Vodaphone. These devices have a bootloop issue and because of its exclusivity it's impossible to find parts to repair it.
It's made by ZTE or Alcatel I believe so I don't see why you would sue Vodafone. They still have a warranty on them but didn't repair this because it was damaged.
@@Scott2k44 It's actually manufactured by TCL that owns the brand Alcatel.
Yea, I know the newer devices are made by Alcatel directly now I believe
I have had the same issue with my Galaxy s6 without dropping it and they Said its not repairable... maybe it was but it might Cost to much... so they changed the phone.
Mate you need to make a video about getting that phone back. I'm seriously interested!
To reball you just need the stencil and solder
R.I.P. crappy android phone.
Vince, I enjoyed the video. But I don't believe your issue came from within the phone. It looked like a firmware issue.
Right
maybe it's in bootloop. you need to reinstal the android system
or it could be a faulty flash chip
Why do you use such thick flux for SMD's? - use a flux pen, hell of a lot easier and clearer!
Rossman disagrees
Two years ago my lg g4 suffered the infamous bootloop and i fix it replacing the entire motherboard, i found it non aliexpress at 70€ (i don't know the exact exchange in gpb sorry)
You didn't fix it, you literally swapped in the board of another phone, that's not a fix, that's buying another phone but cheaper
BTW. Checking ceramic caps for shorts after a drop DOES make sense. They sometimes crack and short internally.
Thanks for the advice:-)
How did u get the echo buttons to work with the adaptive controller?
The digital destroyer 😂 Jk we love you Vince
I think it could be the NAND chip.
Arm chair quarterbacks have arrived.
hold powerbutton and volum down or up hard reset it
disassembly = use plastic tools, metal = scratches and creates dents. Use plastic tools
Alfter some hours if it's parts an not available then I opt for bin
No expert but the fact it booted up and displayed the Android logo makers me think the chips were fine ,I would possibly put the blame one the power button brewing stuck on hence it coming on and going off that said I could' be completely wrong ,I would say they searching eBay or AliExpress for a replacement main board might be a cost effective way of repair of you can find one. Still it's all learning I made a mistake changing a laser on an lg dvd player i believe u only should of undone one of the rails the laser is fitted to one I believe had the laser alignment on and should be left only way now it's too by amech with laser but at £ 13 it's not worth it still it came with 5 speakers and a sub and was free as it was something someone threw away ,I made the same mistake twice messed the laser alignment up on a sharp ghetto blaster still I know now it's all a learning process
What typically happens is a pin or more is disconnected around either the cpu or memory, this causes corruption of the software, when the phone tries to recover it keeps failing due to the software errors, each time it boot loops while the device has dry joints, the software will continue to create more corruption,
There is also other things like the inductor for one of the v_core power rails, maybe for memory